Mineral acid-triggered multicolor room-temperature phosphorescence nanoprobes for time-resolved bioimaging

Abstract

We present a facile strategy to achieve color-tunability room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) nanoprobes by doping mineral acids (i.e., boric acid and phosphoric acid) in an organic silicon scaffold through a cross-linking process. Such RTP nanoprobes exhibit inherent tunable phosphorescence (from 420–650 nm) with long lifetime (emission lasting for ∼5–15 s, RTP lifetime: ∼0.53–2.11 s) and high quantum yields (∼13.1–43.0%). Therefore, the as-prepared nanoprobes enable multiple imaging in live cells with a high signal-to-background ratio value of ∼52.