Issue 10, 2018

Ultrabright red AIEgens for two-photon vascular imaging with high resolution and deep penetration

Abstract

Reported here is a successful strategy for the design of ultrabright red luminogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) features, donor–acceptor structures, and intense charge transfer effects. These luminogens show no aggregation caused emission quenching in the solid state and have high quantum efficiency. They can be fabricated into AIE dots by a simple nanoprecipitation procedure. The AIE dots exhibit high brightness, a large Stokes shift, good biocompatibility, satisfactory photostability, and a high two-photon absorption cross section. The AIE dots can be utilized as highly efficient fluorescent probes for in vivo deep-tissue imaging by a two-photon technique, which outperforms the one-photon technique under the same experimental conditions, in terms of penetration depth and image contrast. This is the first report of using highly emissive AIE dots for the accurate measurement of capillary diameters in mouse ears. Such a strategy sheds light on the development of efficient solid state red/NIR emitters for biological applications.

Graphical abstract: Ultrabright red AIEgens for two-photon vascular imaging with high resolution and deep penetration

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
08 Nov 2017
Accepted
31 Jan 2018
First published
31 Jan 2018
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2018,9, 2705-2710

Ultrabright red AIEgens for two-photon vascular imaging with high resolution and deep penetration

W. Qin, P. Zhang, H. Li, J. W. Y. Lam, Y. Cai, R. T. K. Kwok, J. Qian, W. Zheng and B. Z. Tang, Chem. Sci., 2018, 9, 2705 DOI: 10.1039/C7SC04820C

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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