Hybrid coordination-network-engineering for bridging cascaded channels to activate long persistent phosphorescence in the second biological window

We present a novel “Top-down” strategy to design the long phosphorescent phosphors in the second biological transparency window via energy transfer. Inherence in this approach to material design involves an ingenious engineering for hybridizing the coordination networks of hosts, tailoring the topochemical configuration of dopants, and bridging a cascaded tunnel for transferring the persistent energy from traps, to sensitizers and then to acceptors. Another significance of this endeavour is to highlight a rational scheme for functionally important hosts and dopants, Cr/Nd co-doped Zn1−xCaxGa2O4 solid solutions. Such solid-solution is employed as an optimized host to take advantage of its characteristic trap site level to establish an electron reservoir and network parameters for the precipitation of activators Nd3+ and Cr3+. The results reveal that the strategy employed here has the great potential, as well as opens new opportunities for future new-wavelength, NIR phosphorescent phosphors fabrication with many potential multifunctional bio-imaging applications.

[1]  D. L. Dexter,et al.  Phonon Sidebands, Multiphonon Relaxation of Excited States, and Phonon-Assisted Energy Transfer between Ions in Solids , 1970 .

[2]  Shuo Diao,et al.  Through-skull fluorescence imaging of the brain in a new near-infrared window , 2014, Nature Photonics.

[3]  Qiang Zhao,et al.  Functional near infrared-emitting Cr3+/Pr3+ co-doped zinc gallogermanate persistent luminescent nanoparticles with superlong afterglow for in vivo targeted bioimaging. , 2013, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[4]  Yang Li,et al.  Tailoring of the trap distribution and crystal field in Cr3+-doped non-gallate phosphors with near-infrared long-persistence phosphorescence , 2015 .

[5]  Thomas Maldiney,et al.  Gadolinium‐Doped Persistent Nanophosphors as Versatile Tool for Multimodal In Vivo Imaging , 2015 .

[6]  Chad A. Mirkin,et al.  Chemically tailorable colloidal particles from infinite coordination polymers , 2005, Nature.

[7]  Salaheddine Alahrache,et al.  Considerable Improvement of Long-Persistent Luminescence in Germanium and Tin Substituted ZnGa2O4 , 2013 .

[8]  Didier Gourier,et al.  The in vivo activation of persistent nanophosphors for optical imaging of vascularization, tumours and grafted cells. , 2014, Nature materials.

[9]  J. Plaza,et al.  Spontaneous Emission and Nonlinear Response Enhancement by Silver Nanoparticles in a Nd3+‐Doped Periodically Poled LiNbO3 Laser Crystal , 2013, Advanced materials.

[10]  Takashi Ida,et al.  Isolation of Solid Solution Phases in Size‐Controlled LixFePO4 at Room Temperature , 2009 .

[11]  Yang Li,et al.  A strategy for developing near infrared long-persistent phosphors: taking MAlO3:Mn4+,Ge4+ (M = La, Gd) as an example , 2014 .

[12]  Zhengwei Pan,et al.  Sunlight-activated long-persistent luminescence in the near-infrared from Cr(3+)-doped zinc gallogermanates. , 2011, Nature materials.

[13]  Eugeniusz Zych,et al.  Thermoluminescence and Kinetics of Persistent Luminescence of Vacuum‐Sintered Tb3+‐Doped and Tb3+,Ca2+‐Codoped Lu2O3 Materials. , 2008 .

[14]  Setsuhisa Tanabe,et al.  Tunable trap depth in Zn(Ga1−xAlx)2O4:Cr,Bi red persistent phosphors: considerations of high-temperature persistent luminescence and photostimulated persistent luminescence , 2013 .

[15]  Jianrong Qiu,et al.  Anti-Stokes Fluorescent Probe with Incoherent Excitation , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[16]  Michael J. Zaworotko,et al.  Crystal engineering comes of age , 2011 .

[17]  Hellmut Eckert,et al.  A homonuclear rotational echo double-resonance method for measuring site-resolved distance distributions in I=½ spin pairs, clusters, and multispin systems. , 2012, Angewandte Chemie.

[18]  Eugeniusz Zych,et al.  Thermoluminescence and Kinetics of Persistent Luminescence of Vacuum-Sintered Tb3+-Doped and Tb3+,Ca2+-Codoped Lu2O3 Materials , 2008 .

[19]  Susumu Kitagawa,et al.  Coordination-network-based ionic plastic crystal for anhydrous proton conductivity. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[20]  Edward G. Gillan,et al.  Low-Temperature Solvothermal Synthesis of Phosphorus-Rich Transition-Metal Phosphides. , 2008 .

[21]  Andreas Greiner,et al.  Unusual complex chemistry of rare-Earth elements: large ionic radii-small coordination numbers. , 2003, Angewandte Chemie.

[22]  P. Bruce,et al.  Nanostructured materials for advanced energy conversion and storage devices , 2005, Nature materials.

[23]  Didier Gourier,et al.  Storage of Visible Light for Long-Lasting Phosphorescence in Chromium-Doped Zinc Gallate , 2014 .

[24]  Hideki Kato,et al.  Photocatalytic H2 evolution reaction from aqueous solutions over band structure-controlled (AgIn)xZn2(1-x)S2 solid solution photocatalysts with visible-light response and their surface nanostructures. , 2004, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[25]  Shuo Diao,et al.  In vivo fluorescence imaging with Ag2S quantum dots in the second near-infrared region. , 2012, Angewandte Chemie.

[26]  Willis X Li,et al.  CORRIGENDUM: Drosophila Kdm4 demethylases in histone H3 lysine 9 demethylation and ecdysteroid signalling , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[27]  P. Smet,et al.  Persistent Luminescence in Non-Eu2+-Doped Compounds: A Review , 2010, Materials.

[28]  Yong Zhou,et al.  Zinc Gallogermanate Solid Solution: A Novel Photocatalyst for Efficiently Converting CO2 into Solar Fuels , 2013 .

[29]  Fei He,et al.  A yolk-like multifunctional platform for multimodal imaging and synergistic therapy triggered by a single near-infrared light. , 2015, ACS nano.

[30]  Brendan J. Kennedy,et al.  Lanthanide distribution in some doped alkaline earth aluminates and gallates , 2006 .

[31]  S. Tanabe,et al.  Long-Lasting Afterglow Characteristics of Eu, Dy Codoped SrO-Al2O3 Phosphor , 1996 .

[32]  Pieter Dorenbos,et al.  Controlled electron and hole trapping in YPO 4 : Ce 3 + , Ln 3 + and LuPO 4 : Ce 3 + , Ln 3 + ( Ln = Sm , Dy, Ho, Er, Tm) , 2009 .

[33]  Gautam R. Desiraju,et al.  Cryptic crystallography , 2002, Nature materials.

[34]  Jianhua Hao,et al.  Ligand‐Driven Wavelength‐Tunable and Ultra‐Broadband Infrared Luminescence in Single‐Ion‐Doped Transparent Hybrid Materials , 2009 .

[35]  Yang Li,et al.  Long persistent and photo-stimulated luminescence in Cr3+-doped Zn–Ga–Sn–O phosphors for deep and reproducible tissue imaging , 2014 .