Journal
NANO LETTERS
Volume 20, Issue 12, Pages 8803-8810Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c03675
Keywords
shortwave infrared; conjugated polymer nanoparticles; fluorescent probes; fluorescence imaging; single-molecule; tissue phantoms; time-gated fluorescence detection
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Funding
- King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
- KAUST Office of Sponsored Research (OSR) [OSR-2016-2967-CRG5]
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Fluorescence imaging at longer wavelengths , especially in the shortwave-infrared (SWIR: 1000-1700 nm ) region, leads to a substantial decrease in light attenuation, scattering, and background autofluorescence, thereby enabling enhanced penetration into biological tissues. The limited selection of fluorescent probes is a major bottleneck in SWIR fluorescence imaging. Here, we develop SWIR-emitting nanoparticles composed of donor-acceptor-type conjugated polymers. The bright SWIR fluorescence of the polymer dots (primarily attributable to their large absorption cross-section and high fluorescence saturation intensity (as high as 113 kW.cm(-2))) enables the unprecedented detection of single particles as small as 14 nm through millimeter-thick turbid media. Unlike most SWIR-emitting nanomaterials, which have an excited-state lifetime in the range of microseconds to milliseconds, our polymer dots exhibit a subnanosecond excited-state lifetime. These characteristics enable us to demonstrate new time-gated single-particle imaging with a high signal-to-background ratio. These findings expand the range of potential applications of single-particle deep-tissue imaging.
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