Donor Engineering for NIR-II Molecular Fluorophores with Enhanced Fluorescent Performance
Abstract
Organic fluorophores have been widely used for biological imaging in the visible and the first near-infrared windows. However, their application in the second near-infrared window (NIR-II, 1000-1700 nm) is still limited mainly due to low fluorescence quantum yields (QYs). Here, we explore molecular engineering on the donor unit to develop high performance NIR-II fluorophores. The fluorophores are constructed by a shielding unit-donor(s)-acceptor-donor(s)-shielding unit structure. Thiophene is introduced as the second donor connected to the shielding unit, which can increase the conjugation length and red-shift the fluorescence emission. Alkyl thiophene is employed as the first donor connected to the acceptor unit. The bulky and hydrophobic alkyl thiophene donor affords larger distortion of the conjugated backbone and fewer interactions with water molecules compared to other donor units studied before. The molecular fluorophore IR-FTAP with octyl thiophene as the first donor and thiophene as the second donor exhibits fluorescence emission peaked at 1048 nm with a QY of 5.3% in aqueous solutions, one of the highest for molecular NIR-II fluorophore reported so far. Superior temporal and spatial resolutions have been demonstrated with IR-FTAP fluorophore for NIR-II imaging of the blood vessels of a mouse hindlimb.
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The π-spacer plays an important role in tuning the energy levels of D-π-A-π-D chromophores by extending π-conjugation that promotes/stabilizes the quinoid structure or by introducing steric effects to control the overall twist affecting ICT properties.
“As stated above, the π-spacer also plays an important role in tuning the energy levels of the D-π-A-π-D type of chromophores, as it extends the π-conjugation that promotes/stabilizes the quinoid structure or introduces steric effects to control the overall twist affecting the ICT properties of the system.56,58−61”
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- Authors
- Yang, Q., Hu, Z., Zhu, S., Ma, R., Ma, H., Ma, Z., Wan, H., Zhu, T., Jiang, Z., Liu, W., Jiao, L., Sun, H., Liang, Y., & Dai, H.
- Affiliations
- Southern University of Science and Technology (CN)
- East China Normal University (CN)
- Stanford University (US)
- Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen (CN)
- Tsinghua University (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Sun, Haitao
- Liang, Yongye
- Dai, Hongjie
- ORCID
- Venue
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2018-01-27
- Volume
- 140
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1715-1724
- ISSN
- 0002-7863 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5126
- OpenAlex
- W2782748022
- Cited by
- 554
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 79 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 57 · 2022: 77 · 2021: 70 · 2020: 80 · 2019: 54 · 2018: 24
- FWCI
- 21.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of the American Chemical Society (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M612752)
- Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (16CG25)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (11474096, 21603074, 21772084)
- Shanghai Education Development Foundation (16CG25)
- Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
- Shenzhen Science and Technology Innovation Committee (JCYJ20170307151634428, JSGG20160301095829250, KQTD20140630160825828)
- Shanghai-International Scientific Cooperation Fund (16520721200)
- Shenzhen Key Lab (ZDSYS201505291525382)
- California Blueprint for Research to Advance Innovations in Neuroscience
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Materials Chemistry › Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Spectroscopy › Molecular Sensors and Ion Detection
- Physical Sciences › Chemistry › Physical and Theoretical Chemistry › Photochemistry and Electron Transfer Studies
- Keywords
- NIR-II fluorophores, organic fluorophores, fluorescence quantum yield, thiophene donor, donor-acceptor-donor structure, conjugation length, fluorescence red shift, NIR-II imaging, vascular imaging
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