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Research Article

High brightness NIR-II nanofluorophores based on fused-ring acceptor molecules

Xingfu Zhu1,§, Chunchen Liu1,§, Zhubin Hu2,3,§, Haile Liu4,§, Jiang Wang1, Yang Wang1, Xinyuan Wang1, Rui Ma1, Xiaodong Zhang4( ), Haitao Sun2,3( ), Yongye Liang1( )
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Printed Organic Electronic, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China
State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Collaborative Innovation Center of Extreme Optics, Shanxi University, Taiyuan 030006, China
Department of Physics and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Materials Physics and Preparing Technology, School of Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China

§ Xingfu Zhu, Chunchen Liu, Zhubin Hu, and Haile Li contributed equally to this work.

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Abstract

It is challenging to develop molecular fluorophores in the second near-infrared (NIR-II) window with long wavelength emission and high brightness, which can improve the performance of biological imaging. Herein, we report a molecular engineering approach to afford NIR-II fluorophores with these merits based on fused-ring acceptor (FRA) molecules. Dioctyl 3,4-propylenedioxy thiophene (PDOT-C8) is utilized as the bridging donor to replace 3-ethylhexyloxy thiophene (3-EHOT), leading to more than 20 times enhancement of brightness. The nanofluorophores (NFs) based on the optimized CPTIC-4F molecule exhibit an emission peak of 1,110 nm with a fluorescence quantum yield (QY) of 0.39% (QY of IR-26 is 0.050% in dichloroethane as reference) and peak absorption coefficient of 14.5 × 104 M-1·cm-1 in aqueous solutions, which are significantly higher than those of 3-EHOT based COTIC-4F NFs. It is found that PDOT-C8 can weaken intermolecular aggregation, enhance protection of molecular backbone from water, and decrease backbone distortion, beneficial for the high brightness. Compared with indocyanine green with same injection dose, CPTIC-4F NFs show 10 times higher signal-to-background ratio for whole body vessels imaging at 1,300 nm long pass filters.

Keywords

nanofluorophoresfused-ring acceptorpropylenedioxy thiophenehigh brightnesssecond near-infrared (NIR-II) biological imaging

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Nano Research
Volume 13 Issue 9,
September 2020
Pages 2570-2575
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-020-2901-y
Cite this article:
Zhu X, Liu C, Hu Z, et al. High brightness NIR-II nanofluorophores based on fused-ring acceptor molecules. Nano Research, 2020, 13(9): 2570-2575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2901-y
Topics:
FluorophoresInfrared devices

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Received: 13 March 2020
Revised: 20 May 2020
Accepted: 23 May 2020
Published: 22 June 2020
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
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