From Lanthanide Photophysics to Multifunctional Hybrid Materials: Designing Luminescent Platforms for Sensing and Anti-Counterfeiting Technologies

Lanthanide-based materials have attracted considerable attention owing to their unique optical properties, including sharp emission bands, long excited-state lifetimes and Stokes shifts, and tunable luminescence from the visible to the NIR. This lecture will present recent advances from LLuMeS Laboratory on the design of molecular and hybrid lanthanide systems, focusing on the relationship between structure, energy transfer, and photophysical behavior. Strategies based on coordination compounds and multifunctional hybrid architectures have been employed to tailor luminescence and introduce functionalities such as magnetic response, excitation-dependent emission, and temperature-sensitive optical behavior. Particular emphasis will be given to luminescent thermometry and the development of optical thermometers with enhanced sensitivity. Recent progress in hybrid materials combining downshifting and upconversion processes for optical security applications, including multifunctional luminescent and magnetic–luminescent inks for multilevel anti-counterfeiting, will also be discussed. These studies highlight the versatility of lanthanide chemistry for advanced functional materials and emerging technologies.