Nanoparticles and nanocomposites for fluorescence sensing and imaging

The assortment of fluorescence reporters is changing dramatically. Traditionally explored intrinsic fluorescence of biological macromolecules and cellular pigments and of externally introduced organic dyes are presently in strong competition with new nanomaterials. Among them are conjugated polymers, semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots), up-converting nanocrystals, magic-size clusters of silver and gold, nanodiamonds and carbon dots. They demonstrate diverse photophysical behavior and allow one to obtain diverse information when used in analytical tools or when they form images in biological systems. Based on them, functional nanocomposites displaying a variety of useful features, thus extending dramatically the information content of output data, can be constructed. We describe their properties and compare them with those of small-molecular emitters, such as organic dyes. With their aid, one can modulate over a wide range the wavelengths of excitation and emission, the lifetimes and anisotropies and design the systems with 'superenhancement' and 'superquenching'. Such unlimited possibilities are offered by combining different types of luminophores based on electronic conjugation, plasmonic effects or excited-state resonance energy transfer. This tutorial review provides a comparative analysis of the properties of new nanoscale materials and of their hybrid nanocomposites for applications in fluorescence sensing and imaging. (topical review)