scholarly journals Improvement of ligand-free modification strategy to obtain water-stable up-converting nanoparticles with bright emission and high reaction yield

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Jurga ◽  
Dominika Przybylska ◽  
Piotr Kamiński ◽  
Tomasz Grzyb

AbstractWater-dispersible up-converting nanoparticles (UCNPs) are known to be very effective in biomedical applications. Research groups have paid special attention to the synthesis of hydrophilic UCNPs with good physicochemical properties. Being aware of this, we decided to improve the ligand-free modification method of OA-capped NaYF4:Yb3+,Er3+/NaYF4 UCNPs prepared by precipitation in high-boiling-point solvents as the thus-far reported methods do not provide satisfactory results. Different molarities of hydrochloric acid and various mixing times were selected to remove the organic ligand from the NPs’ surface and to discover the most promising modification approach. Highly water-stable colloids were obtained with a very high reaction yield of up to 96%. Moreover, the acid treatment did not affect the morphology and the size of the product. All of the crystals exhibited a bright up-conversion emission under 975-nm excitation, which confirmed the two-photon excitation and effective energy transfer between the used dopant ions. Thus, we could establish the most successful ligand-free modification procedure.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Jurga ◽  
Dominika Przybylska ◽  
Piotr Kamiński ◽  
Tomasz Grzyb

Abstract Water-dispersible up-converting nanoparticles (UCNPs) are known to be very effective in biomedical applications. Research groups have paid special attention to the synthesis of hydrophilic UCNPs with good physicochemical properties. Being aware of this, we decided to improve the ligand-free modification method of OA-capped NaYF4:Yb3+,Er3+/NaYF4 UCNPs prepared by precipitation in high-boiling-point solvents as the thus-far reported methods do not provide satisfactory results. Different molarities of hydrochloric acid and various mixing times were selected to remove the organic ligand from the NPs’ surface and to discover the most promising modification approach. Highly water-stable colloids were obtained with a very high reaction yield of up to 96%. Moreover, the acid treatment did not affect the morphology and the size of the product. All of the crystals exhibited a bright up-conversion emission under 975-nm excitation, which confirmed the two-photon excitation and effective energy transfer between the used dopant ions. Thus, we could establish the most successful ligand-free modification procedure.


Author(s):  
David W. Piston ◽  
Brian D. Bennett ◽  
Robert G. Summers

Two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM) provides attractive advantages over confocal microscopy for three-dimensionally resolved fluorescence imaging and photochemistry. Two-photon excitation arises from the simultaneous absorption of two photons in a single quantitized event whose probability is proportional to the square of the instantaneous intensity. For example, two red photons can cause the transition to an excited electronic state normally reached by absorption in the ultraviolet. In practice, two-photon excitation is made possible by the very high local instantaneous intensity provided by a combination of diffraction-limited focusing of a single laser beam in the microscope and the temporal concentration of 100 femtosecond pulses generated by a mode-locked laser. Resultant peak excitation intensities are 106 times greater than the CW intensities used in confocal microscopy, but the pulse duty cycle of 10-5 maintains the average input power on the order of 10 mW, only slightly greater than the power normally used in confocal microscopy.


Author(s):  
David W. Piston

Two-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy provides attractive advantages over confocal microscopy for three-dimensionally resolved fluorescence imaging. Two-photon excitation arises from the simultaneous absorption of two photons in a single quantitized event whose probability is proportional to the square of the instantaneous intensity. For example, two red photons can cause the transition to an excited electronic state normally reached by absorption in the ultraviolet. In our fluorescence experiments, the final excited state is the same singlet state that is populated during a conventional fluorescence experiment. Thus, the fluorophore exhibits the same emission properties (e.g. wavelength shifts, environmental sensitivity) used in typical biological microscopy studies. In practice, two-photon excitation is made possible by the very high local instantaneous intensity provided by a combination of diffraction-limited focusing of a single laser beam in the microscope and the temporal concentration of 100 femtosecond pulses generated by a mode-locked laser. Resultant peak excitation intensities are 106 times greater than the CW intensities used in confocal microscopy, but the pulse duty cycle of 10−5 maintains the average input power on the order of 10 mW, only slightly greater than the power normally used in confocal microscopy.


Bioimaging ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 70-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka E Hänninen ◽  
Martin Schrader ◽  
Erkki Soini ◽  
Stefan W Hell

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 305-306
Author(s):  
David W. Piston

Two-photon excitation microscopy (TPEM) provides attractive advantages over confocal microscopy for three-dimensionally resolved fluorescence imaging and photochemistry. It provides three-dimensional resolution and eliminates background equivalent to an ideal confocal microscope without requiring a confocal spatial filter, whose absence enhances fluorescence collection efficiency. This results in inherent submicron optical sectioning by excitation alone. In practice, TPEM is made possible by the very high local instantaneous intensity provided by a combination of diffraction-limited focusing of a single laser beam in the microscope and the temporal concentration of 100 femtosecond pulses generated by a mode-locked laser. Resultant peak excitation intensities are 106 times greater than the CW intensities used in confocal microscopy, but the pulse duty cycle of 10−5 limits the average input power to less than 10 mW, only slightly greater than the power normally used in confocal microscopy. Because of the intensity-squared dependence of the two-photon absorption, the excitation is limited to the focal volume.


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