Single Excited Dual Band Luminescent Hybrid Carbon Dots-Terbium Chelate Nanothermometer.

The report introduces hybrid polyelectrolyte-stabilized colloids combining blue and green-emitting building blocks, which are citrate carbon dots (CDs) and [TbL] chelate complexes with 1,3-diketonate derivatives of calix[4]arene. The joint incorporation of green and blue-emitting blocks into the polysodium polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) aggregates is carried out through the solvent-exchange synthetic technique. The coordinative binding between Tb centers and CD surface groups in initial DMF solutions both facilitates joint incorporation of [TbL] complexes and the CDs into the PSS-based nanobeads and affects fluorescence properties of [TbL] complexes and CDs, as well as their ability for temperature sensing.

Terbium(III)-thiacalix[4]arene nanosensor for highly sensitive intracellular monitoring of temperature changes within the 303-313 K range.

The work introduces hydrophilic PSS-[Tb(TCAn)] nanoparticles to be applied as highly sensitive intracellular temperature nanosensors. The nanoparticles are synthesized by solvent-induced nanoprecipitation of [Tb(TCAn)] complexes (TCAn - thiacalix[4]arenes bearing different upper-rim substituents: unsubstituted TCA1, tert-buthyl-substituted TCA2, di- and tetra-brominated TCA3 and TCA4) with the use of polystyrenesulfonate (PSS) as stabilizer. The temperature responsive luminescence behavior of PSS-[Tb(TCAn)] within 293-333 K range in water is modulated by reversible changes derived from the back energy transfer from metal to ligand (M* → T) correlating with the energy gap between the triplet levels of ligands and resonant D level of Tb ion.