Terbium resonance energy transfer

Hildebrandt N, Charbonniere LJ, Lohmannsroben HG (2007) Time-resolved analysis of a highly sensitive forster resonance energy transfer immunoassay using terbium complexes as donors and quantum dots as acceptors. J Biomed Biotechnol 2007 79169... 

The authors observe that other rare earths also quench terbium in the same solution. The quenching effects appear to correlate well with a resonance-exchange mechanism. This strongly points to the fact that the terbium-to-europium-transfer process is probably the same. Perhaps the most important aspect of this work is that it vividly shows that energy may migrate from one rare-earth ion to another without the necessity of a crystal or glass lattice. ... 

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