Upconverting NIR Photons for Bioimaging
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA 01605, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editor: Yurii Gun'ko
Nanomaterials 2015, 5(4), 2148-2168; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano5042148
Received: 15 October 2015 / Accepted: 27 November 2015 / Published: 4 December 2015
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanoparticles in Bioimaging)
Lanthanide-doped upconverting nanoparticles (UCNPs) possess uniqueanti-Stokes optical properties, in which low energy near-infrared (NIR) photons can beconverted into high energy UV, visible, shorter NIR emission via multiphoton upconversionprocesses. Due to the rapid development of synthesis chemistry, lanthanide-doped UCNPscan be fabricated with narrow distribution and tunable multi-color optical properties. Theseunique attributes grant them unique NIR-driven imaging/drug delivery/therapeuticapplications, especially in the cases of deep tissue environments. In this brief review, weintroduce both the basic concepts of and recent progress with UCNPs in material engineeringand theranostic applications in imaging, molecular delivery, and tumor therapeutics. The aimof this brief review is to address the most typical progress in basic mechanism, materialdesign as bioimaging tools.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
upconversion nanoparticles; optical imaging; optical therapy
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Li, Z.; Zhang, Y.; La, H.; Zhu, R.; El-Banna, G.; Wei, Y.; Han, G. Upconverting NIR Photons for Bioimaging. Nanomaterials 2015, 5, 2148-2168.
Show more citation formats
