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Upconversion materials have attracted considerable research interest for their application in bioimaging due to their unique optical properties. NaREF4 (RE = Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu) based host lattice, which is widely used for upconversion, requires expensive rare-earth elements and tedious reaction conditions. Hence there is a need to develop environmentally friendly and cost effective materials for upconversion. In this study, we propose NaBiF4 as a host material for upconversion which is based on environmentally friendly and cost-effective bismuth. NaBiF4 has not been explored as an imaging probe before. We report efficient Yb3+/Tm3+ doped NaBiF4 based upconversion submicron particles which exhibit a photostable, wide upconversion emission range (NIR-to-NIR and Vis) under NIR (980 nm) excitation, and in-vitro non-cytotoxic uptake by mammalian cancer cell lines as well as bacterial cells with a high signal to background ratio. The synthesis of the chosen host material co-doped with Yb3+/Tm3+ has not been reported earlier through such a non-aqueous quaternary reverse micelle route. Here, we functionally validate these submicron particles as viable alternatives to currently available upconversion nanomaterials and highlight their potential as luminescent probes for bioimaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upconversion materials have attracted considerable research interest for their application in bioimaging due to their unique optical properties. NaREF 4 (RE = Sc, Y, La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb and Lu) based host lattice, which is widely used for upconversion, requires expensive rare-earth elements and tedious reaction conditions. Hence there is a need to develop environmentally friendly and cost effective materials for upconversion. In this study, we propose NaBiF 4 as a host material for upconversion which is based on environmentally friendly and cost-effective bismuth. NaBiF 4 has not been explored as an imaging probe before. We report efficient Yb 3+ /Tm 3+ doped NaBiF 4 based upconversion submicron particles which exhibit a photostable, wide upconversion emission range (NIR-to-NIR and Vis) under NIR (980 nm) excitation, and in-vitro non-cytotoxic uptake by mammalian cancer cell lines as well as bacterial cells with a high signal to background ratio. The synthesis of the chosen host material co-doped with Yb 3+ /Tm 3+ has not been reported earlier through such a non-aqueous quaternary reverse micelle route. Here, we functionally validate these submicron particles as viable alternatives to currently available upconversion nanomaterials and highlight their potential as luminescent probes for bioimaging.