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The increasing interest in molecular and nanoscale emitters with photoluminescence > 800 nm and recently also > 1000 nm for bioanalysis, medical diagnostics, bioimaging, and safety Barcodes requires quantitative spectroscopic studies, which are, however still challenging in this long wavelength region. This is of special relevance for nanocrystalline emitters like semiconductor quantum dots and rods as well as lanthanide-based upconversion and downconversion nanocrystals, where surface states and the accessibility of emissive states by quenchers largely control accomplishable photoluminescence quantum yields and hence, signal sizes and detection sensitivities from the reporter side. Moreover, nonlinear emitters like lanthanide-based upconversion nanocrystals require also power density-dependent studies of their luminescence spectra, quantum yields, and decay kinetics. Here, we present suitable absolute methods and underline the impact of such measurements on a profound mechanistic understanding of the nonradiative deactivation pathways in semiconductor and upconversion nanocrystals of different chemical composition and particle architecture.
The overall interest in nanotoxicity, triggered by the increasing use of nanomaterials in the material and life sciences, and the synthesis of an ever increasing number of new functional nanoparticles calls for standardized test procedures1,2 and for efficient approaches to screen the potential genotoxicity of these materials. Aiming at the development of fast and easy to use, automated microscopic methods for the determination of the genotoxicity of different types of nanoparticles, we assess the potential of the fluorometric γH2AX assay for this purpose. This assay, which can be run on an automated microscopic detection system, relies on the detection of DNA double strand breaks as a sign for genotoxicity3. Here, we provide first results obtained with broadly used nanomaterials like CdSe/CdS and InP/ZnS quantum dots as well as iron oxide, gold, and polymer particles of different surface chemistry with previously tested colloidal stability and different cell lines like Hep-2 and 8E11 cells, which reveal a dependence of the genotoxicity on the chemical composition as well as the surface chemistry of these nanomaterials. These studies will be also used to establish nanomaterials as positive and negative genotoxicity controls or standards for assay performance validation for users of this fluorometric genotoxicity assay. In the future, after proper validation, this microscopic platform technology will be expanded to other typical toxicity assays.
Lanthanide-based upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) offer new strategies for luminescence-based sensing and imaging. One of the best studied materials are hexagonal ß-NaYF4 UCNPs doped with 20% Yb3+ and 2% Er3+, which efficiently convert 976 nm light to photons emitted at 540 nm, 655 nm, and 845 nm, respectively, reveal Long luminescence lifetimes (> 100 µs), and are very photostable and chemically inters.[1,2] The properties of their upconversion (UC) luminescence (UCL) are, however, strongly influenced by particle size, concentration and spatial arrangement of dopant Ions, surface chemistry, and microenvironment.[3,4] In addition, the multiphotonic absorption processes responsible for UCL render UCL dependent on excitation power density (P).
The rational design of brighter UCNPs particle architectures encouraged us to assess systematically the influence of these parameters on UCL for differently doped UCNPs relying on the commonly used ß-NaYf4 matrix using steady state and time resolved fluorometry as well as integrating sphere spectroscopy for P varied over almost three orders of magnitude. This includes comprehensive studies of the influence of size and shell, Yb3+ and Er3+ dopand concentrations, and energy Transfer processes from UCNPs to surface-bound organic dyes or vice versa [5]. Our results underline the need for really quantitative luminescence studies for mechanistic insights, the potential of high p to compensate for UCL surface quenching, and the matrix- and P-dependence of the optimum dopand concentration.