Bioimaging shows great potential for disease detection due to its high sensitivity at the subcellular level and low cost of related imaging facilities. As compared to most commonly used optical probes that are excited and emit in the visible wavelength range, near-infrared (NIR) excitable and emitting nanomaterials are indeed more promising for bioimaging. It is because at certain NIR wavelengths (known as biological windows) tissues are basically optically transparent and show minimal scattering and absorption, allowing for deep tissue imaging. Meanwhile, tissue autofluorescence can also be avoided. In this talk, I will present our recent work [1-4] on the synthesis of NIR-emitting water soluble, stable core/shell/shell quantum dots (QDs) and rare-earth doped nanoparticles, and their use in biomedicine, including but not limited to bioimaging.

References:

[1] ACS Nano 2019, 13, 408-420;

[2] Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 1706235 (Inside Back Cover);

[3] Chem. Mater. 2019, 31, 3201-3210.

[4] Science Advances, 2021, 7;7(15):eabc3012