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Project

Lanthanide doped silica nanoparticles for bioimaging via two photon excitation

We propose the design of silica nanoparticles (SiNPs) doped with lanthanide (Ln3+ = Eu3+, Tb3+, Sm3+ and Dy3+) complexes that have the ability to be excited with two photon excitation. Ligands will be designed in such a way to have high two photon absorption cross section, while retaining the ability to excite the Ln3+ ions. The formed complexes of these ligands with Ln3+ will be characterized by classical techniques such as single XRD, PXRD, ESI-MS and photophysical studies as well as with novel methods based on nonlinear optical techniques. The synthesis of the silica nanoparticles will be done by two methods depending on the chemical nature of Ln3+ complexes, either by a water-oil emulsion method or with Stöber method. The SiNPs will be grafted directly after synthesis with small organic molecules or peptides as targeting molecules (TM) or will be coated with a shell of (3-aminopropyl)trietoxysilane (ATEPS) and then grafted with TM. The functionalized SiNPs will then be used for in vitro bioimaging of cells (organelles) via two photon microscopy.
Date:1 Oct 2020 →  30 Sep 2021
Keywords:Bioimaging, Nanoparticles, Nonlinear optics, Luminescence
Disciplines:Chemistry of clusters, colloids and nanomaterials, Nonlinear optics and spectroscopy