Abstract
The orthogonal luminescence encoding technique is developed for the first time based on a novel near-infrared (NIR) rechargeable upconverting persistent luminescence (UCPL) composites. The orthogonal encoding signals with multicolor upconversion emission and long persistent phosphorescence can be activated and work independently in the presence and absence of 980 nm excitation. The orthogonal encoding technique allows for a marked increase in the coding capacity compared with conventional luminescence encoding strategies. This strategy can offer a greatly increased coding capacity with less naked-eye certifiable colors to decrease the decoding error rate induced by the chromatic aberration of the similar colors, which can be effectively decoded by the portable charge-coupled device. In addition, the obtained NIR rechargeable UCPL materials show great potential applications for anticounterfeiting, rewriteable data encryption and decryption, zero-background bioimaging, and noninvasive photo-biostimulation, etc.