Direct Excitation Lanthanide Luminescence

Due to the modifications of the electronic cloud induced by complexation, the quantum yield and the excitation spectrum are also modified. As the direct determination of the absolute quantum yield is very difficult to achieve, one usually finds in the literature quantum yield values determined by comparison to well-known standards, such as quinine sulfate. For example, some values can be found in Georges (1993) or in Klink et al. (2000) for some europium complexes but may be found also in many other papers on lanthanide luminescence. Studies on the correlations between the photophysical properties of a given type of europium complexes and the energy levels can be found in Latva et al. (1997), Klink et al. (2000). A correlation has been found between the excitation properties and the stoichiometry of various Eu(III) complexes (Choppin and Wang, 1997). Note that the changes in the excitation maximum induced by complexation usually amount to a few tenths of nanometers, which requires high resolution for detection. In the case of Eu(III), a correlation has been found between the frequency... 

In theory, the photostability of luminescent lanthanide complexes should be superior to the photostabihty of purely organic chromophores since excited lanthanide ions do not undergo photochemistry, and the energy transfer from the antenna chromophore to the lanthanide ion deactivates any organic excited states that would give rise to destructive photochemistry. Direct comparison of the photostability of NIR luminescent lanthanide complexes and organic fluorophores has not yet been carried out. 

The first two chapters of this work cover theoretical and practical aspects of the emission process, the spectroscopic techniques and the equipment used to characterize the emission. Chapter 3 introduces and reviews the property of circularly polarized emission, while Chapter 4 reviews the use of lanthanide ion complexes in bioimaging and fluorescence microscopy. Chapter 5 covers the phenomenon of two-photon absorption, its theory as well as applications in imaging, while Chapter 6 reviews the use of lanthanide ions as chemo-sensors. Chapter 7 introduces the basic principles of nanoparticle upconversion luminescence and its use for bioimaging and Chapter 8 reviews direct excitation of the lanthanide ions and the use of the excitation spectra to probe the metal ion s coordination environment in eoordination compounds and biopolymers. Finally, Chapter 9 describes the formation of heterobimetallic complexes, in whieh the lanthanide ion emission is promoted through the hetero-metal. 

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