Sub-millisecond electric field sensing with an individual rare-earth doped ferroelectric nanocrystal

Understanding the dynamics of electrical signals within neuronal assemblies is crucial to unraveling complex brain function. Despite recent advances in employing optically active nanostructures in transmembrane potential sensing, there remains room for improvement in terms of response time and sensitivity. Here, we report the development of such a nanosensor capable of detecting electric fields with a submillisecond response time at the single particle level. We achieve this by using ferroelectric nanocrystals doped with rare earth ions producing upconversion (UC). When such a nanocrystal experiences a variation of surrounding electric potential, its surface charge density changes, inducing electric polarization modifications that vary, via converse piezoelectric effect, the crystal field around the ions. The latter variation is finally converted into UC spectral changes, enabling optical detection of electric potential. To develop such a sensor, we synthesized erbium and ytterbium-doped barium titanate crystals of size ≈ 160 nm. We observed distinct changes in the UC spectrum when individual nanocrystals were subjected to an external field via a conductive AFM tip, with a response time of 100 µs. Furthermore, our sensor exhibits a sensitivity to electric fields of only 4.8 kV/cm/√Hz, making possible the time-resolved detection of a neuron action potential.