Lighting the way to see inside the live cell with luminescent transition metal complexes

Recent Advances in Phosphorescent Pt(II) Complexes Featuring Metallophilic Interactions: Properties and Applications

“…15,16,96 Indeed, phosphorescent complexes possess different advantages when compared to organic luminophores such as reduced photobleaching, longer excited state lifetimes, large Stokes shift, sensitivity to the environment, such as pH, polarity, and rigidity. These characteristics make luminescent complexes suitable potential candidates for bioimaging labels and probes able to improve signal over background fluorescence ratio by using time gate techniques and lifetime-based imaging mapping.…”

Neutral N^C^N terdentate luminescent Pt(ii) complexes: their synthesis, photophysical properties, and bio-imaging applications

“…[15][16][17][18] Another fast emerging field regarding luminescent Pt(II) complexes is their application as luminescent labels for bioimaging. [19][20][21][22][23] Although fluorescent organic labels are still the leading choice for such applications, [24][25][26] phosphorescent Pt(II) complexes are slowly gaining attention and could outclass organic molecules. In fact, Pt complexes display many advantages such as: (i) a wide emission colour tunability by an adequate choice of the ligands; (ii) a better stability towards photo-and chemical degradation; (iii) a very large Stokes shift that allows the detection of their emission at a much lower energy than the excitation energy; (iv) long-lived luminescent excited states owing to their triplet-manifold nature; (v) emission lifetimes typically two to three orders of magnitude longer than those of classic organic fluorophores.…”

Wide-field TCSPC: methods and applications

“…Most MCP detectors consist of two (chevron configuration) or three (z-stack configuration) MCPs either pressed together or with a small gap between them. The angles of the plates are rotated 180 with respect to each other, minimising ion feedback. One MCP can have gain up to 10 000, but a 3-MCP intensifier can provide gain >10 million.…”

“…In life sciences, PLIM is often used to image microenvironment of the probe, such as the oxygen concentration or viscosity [180,181]. The long lifetime increases the sensitivity by giving the probe more time to interact with the environment, and it allows the short-lived autofluorescence from the sample to be discarded.…”