Nanotechnology Combined With Fluorescent Dyes to Further Improve Material Performance

Fluorescent dyes, as a new functional material, especially organic fluorescent dyes, have the advantages of good selectivity, high sensitivity, high light stability, high fluorescence quantum yield, simple and fast operation, etc., and are widely used in biology, chemical industry, medicine , Electrochemical and military industries. However, dye molecules are toxic and photodegradable to living organisms, which limits the time range of in vivo experiments. In order to overcome this limitation, scientists combine fluorescent dyes with nanotechnology to improve the performance of fluorescent dyes and promote their fluorescence immunity, Applications such as fluorescent probes.

Recently, researchers from the University of Paris Saclay and the University of Montreal in Canada have demonstrated that when organic dye molecules are encapsulated in boron nitride nanotubes (dyes@BNNT), they will be passivated and light stable.

The researchers found that, the BNNTs drive an aggregation of the encapsulated dyes, which induces a redshifted fluorescence from visible to NIR‐II. The fluorescence remains strong and stable, exempt of bleaching and blinking, over a time scale longer than that of free dyes by more than 104. This passivation also reduces the toxicity of the dyes and induces exceptional chemical robustness, even in harsh conditions. These properties are highlighted in bioimaging where the dyes@BNNT nanohybrids are used as fluorescent nanoprobes for in vivo monitoring of Daphnia Pulex microorganisms and for diffusion tracking on human hepatoblastoma cells with two‐photon imaging.

This study proves that nanostructures can control, influence and improve the performance of fluorescent dyes, which provides a direction for the development of fluorescent dyes, and has important scientific research and market value.

references:

Charlotte Allard, Léonard Schué, Frédéric Fossard, et al., Confinement of Dyes inside Boron Nitride Nanotubes: Photostable and Shifted Fluorescence down to the Near Infrared. Adv. Mater. 2020, 2001429.