From a Molecular Toolbox to a Toolbox for Photoswitchable Fluorescent Polymeric Nanoparticles

Abstract

Switchable organic fluorescent materials are attracting much interest in many fields including flexible display, information storage, anti-counterfeit, and bioimaging, due to their prominent properties and relatively low cost. Herein, a class of novel photoswitchable fluorescent polymeric nanoparticles (PFPNs) toolbox that shows switchable full-colored emission including white light is described. This nanoparticles toolbox consists of a series of reversibly photoswitchable and non-PFPNs with red, green, and blue fluorescence, and is built up from three primary fluorescent dyes and a photochromic diarylethene molecule, through a facile one-pot miniemulsion method. The as-prepared PFPNs display the merits of high fluorescence resonance energy transfer efficiency and fluorescence quantum yield, rapid responsiveness, prominent photoreversibility, and brilliant long-term fluorescence stability (≈6 weeks). They enable switchable emission between white light and any visible color on-demand in both solution and film states. Their potential in complex fluorescent encryption and photoswitchable white light-emitting diode is described and its great potential in anti-counterfeiting technology, data encryption, and the next generation of optoelectronic materials is foreseen.

Emulsion Techniques for the Production of Pharmacological Nanoparticles

“…This system was then suitable to visualize intracellular lysosomal pH changes. The same group also synthesized reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent polymeric nanoparticles (PFPNs) with possible switching of emission between white light and any visible color in solution and films . PFPNs were built up from three primary fluorescent dyes of (4‐ethoxy‐9‐allyl‐1,8‐naphthalimide, 2‐((7‐nitrobenzo[c][1,2,5]oxadiazol‐4‐yl)amino)ethyl methacrylate, 9 (diethylamino)‐5‐oxo‐5H‐benzo‐[a]phenoxazin‐2‐yl‐methacrylate, and a photochromic diarylethene (DTE) molecule, by miniemulsion polymerization.…”

Organic photoresponsive materials for information storage: a review

“…Since the emission colors of different photochromes can be predicted, the final emission spectra can be modulated and expanded in the case that FRET is designed to occur. [58][59][60] However, for most existing photofluorochromic information storage materials, only singlecolor fluorescence on/off photoswitching is realized based on the above mixture system. 9 Multicolor fluorescence photoswitching for information storage can be obtained by mixing three or more fluorescent molecules into one system and using two-step (or multistep) FRET between them.…”

“…S2 in the Supplemental Materials) were made into the reversible fluorescent photoswitchable nanoparticle toolbox by a simple one-pot miniemulsion method. 60 The luminescence of the nanoparticles toolbox can be turned off by the FRET mechanism from the excited fluorescent dyes 59 to 61 to the closed-ring form of compound 58 under UV irradiation. The white-light to full-colored emission was achieved in both solution and film by the combination of the nonswitchable (A 1 , A 2 , A 3 containing 58) and switchable (B 1 , B 2 , B 3 containing 58) nanoparticles [ Fig.…”

A simplicity-guided cocktail approach toward multicolor fluorescent systems

“…Main drivers for this development are potential applications in optical data storage, bioimaging, super-resolution microscopy, sensors, anticounterfeiting, and more. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Compared to binary on-off (single-color) fluorescence switching, stimuliresponsive multicolor systems offer many upsides such as allowing for ratiometric methods, [12][13][14][15] full-color reproduction, [16][17][18] and the possibility to introduce a high degree of unpredictability in the associated spectral changes, a highly sought-after property in data-security contexts. 1,19,20 For multicolor fluorescence photoswitching, the color changes can be brought about in two principally different ways: color-specific and color-correlated switching.…”

“…Efficient FRET reactions, however, require the donor and the acceptor in close proximity, typically at around 40 Å or closer. Several supramolecular and covalently linked constructs have been presented, 16,[25][26][27][28][29][30][31] the common denominator being a careful organization of the system into a suitable geometry that allows for efficient FRET reactions to occur. Most often these approaches imply complicated synthetic procedures and the loss of system flexibility.…”