Rational Design of Molecular Fluorophores for Biological Imaging in the NIR-II Window

Qinglai Yang; Zhuoran Ma; Huasen Wang; Bin Zhou; Shoujun Zhu; Yeteng Zhong; Junying Wang; Hao Wan; Alexander Antaris; Rui Ma; Xiao Zhang; Jingyi Yang; Xiaodong Zhang; Haitao Sun; Weiqiang Liu; Yongye Liang; Hongjie Dai

doi:10.1002/adma.201605497

Rational Design of Molecular Fluorophores for Biological Imaging in the NIR-II Window

Adv Mater. 2017 Mar;29(12). doi: 10.1002/adma.201605497. Epub 2017 Jan 24.

Authors

Qinglai Yang^{1

2}, Zhuoran Ma³, Huasen Wang¹, Bin Zhou⁴, Shoujun Zhu³, Yeteng Zhong³, Junying Wang⁵, Hao Wan^{1

3}, Alexander Antaris³, Rui Ma¹, Xiao Zhang¹, Jingyi Yang¹, Xiaodong Zhang⁵, Haitao Sun⁴, Weiqiang Liu², Yongye Liang¹, Hongjie Dai³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, South University of Science and Technology of China, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
² Research Center for Advanced Materials and Biotechnology, Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
³ Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
⁵ Department of Physics, School of Sciences and Tianjin Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300350, China.

PMID: 28117499
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201605497

Abstract

A new design for second near-infrared window (NIR-II) molecular fluorophores based on a shielding unit-donor-acceptor-donor-shielding unit (S-D-A-D-S) structure is reported. With 3,4-ethylenedioxy thiophene as the donor and fluorene as the shielding unit, the best performance fluorophores IR-FE and IR-FEP exhibit an emission quantum yield of 31% in toluene and 2.0% in water, respectively, representing the brightest organic dyes in NIR-II region reported so far.

Keywords: 3,4-ethylenedioxy thiophene; biological imaging; fluorine; molecular fluorophores; second near-infrared window.

MeSH terms

Fluorescent Dyes / chemistry*
Water

Substances

Fluorescent Dyes
Water