Energy recruitment via lanthanide-chelate to boost the persistent luminescence of nanophosphor for contrast-enhanced tumor navigation

•Efficacious Förster-type energy transfer occurs from DOTA-Eu to ZSCE PLNPs.•ZDE PLNPs enable 3.9-fold luminous brightness and 1.4-fold lifetime over bare PLNPs.•PLNPs perform high contrast imaging and accurate tumor boundary depicting ability.•Breast tumor excision is conducted under the guidance of persistent luminescence.•Lanthanide-chelate strategy could serve as an extensible approach to optimize PLNPs.