The escalating prevalence of counterfeiting and forgery has imposed unprecedented demands on advanced anti-counterfeiting technologies. Traditional luminescent materials, relying on single-mode or static emission, are inherently vulnerable to replication using commercially available phosphors or simple spectral blending. Multimode luminescent materials exhibiting excitation wavelength-dependent emission offer significantly higher encoding capacity and forgery resistance. Herein, we report the colloidal synthesis of lanthanide-doped Cs₂ZrCl₆ nanocrystals (Ln³⁺ = Tb, Eu, Pr, Sm, Dy, Ho) via a robust hot-injection route. These nanocrystals universally exhibit efficient host-to-guest energy transfer from self-trapped excitons (STEs) under 254 nm, yielding sharp characteristic Ln³⁺ f–f emission alongside the intrinsic broadband STE luminescence. Critically, Tb³⁺ enables direct 4f → 5d excitation at ~275 nm, while Eu³⁺ introduces a low-energy Eu³⁺ ← Cl⁻ LMCT band at ~305 nm, completely bypassing STE emission. Due to their multimode luminescent characteristics, we fabricate a triple-mode anti-counterfeiting label displaying different colors under different types of excitation. These findings establish a breakthrough excitation-encoded multimode platform, offering potential applications for next-generation photonic security labels, scintillation detectors, and solid-state lighting applications.

The trace water content in industrial oil critically affects the operational stability and service life of industrial equipment and serves as a key indicator for evaluating oil quality. Therefore, the rapid, sensitive, and visual detection of trace water in oil is of great engineering significance for equipment condition monitoring and early fault warning. Existing detection methods predominantly rely on precision instruments; although they enable quantitative analysis, their operational procedures are complicated and time-consuming, which are unsuitable for on-site real-time monitoring. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a novel trace water detection sensor that offers high sensitivity, visualization, and adaptability to oil-phase environments. Herein, a coplanar electrode alternating current electroluminescent (ACEL) sensor is developed for the visual detection of trace water in oil. The ACEL sensor features a multilayer structure comprising a substrate layer, a coplanar electrode layer, and a humidity-sensitive luminescent layer. The humidity-sensitive luminescent layer consists of humidity-sensitive hydrogel and ZnS: Cu electroluminescent powder, forming a loose and porous film that enables high-sensitivity humidity sensing and simultaneously electroluminescent visual signal output. The sensing mechanism study reveals that variations in trace water content modulate the dielectric properties of the humidity-sensitive layer, which further affect the electroluminescent intensity of the ACEL sensor. In addition, the ACEL sensor enables the rapid, naked-eye recognition of humidity changes under trace water conditions without the need for precision instruments, achieving a rapid response time of 3 s and a detection limit as low as 60 ppm, all making it applicable for different types of industrial oils. Thus, this ACEL sensor features a novel detection mechanism, excellent universality, fast response, and ease of operation, offering a new visual sensing strategy for trace water detection in industrial oil and holding broad prospects for practical applications.