Polyester-tethered near-infrared fluorophores confined in colloidal nanoparticles: tunable and thermoresponsive aggregation and biomedical applications

• Main Authors: Yang, Cangjie, Zhang, Wei, Pang, Xin, Xiao, Fan, Kalva, Sandeep Kumar, Zhang, Yipeng, Pramanik, Manojit, Tian, Leilei, Liu, Gang, Wang, Mingfeng
• Other Authors: School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Engineering::Bioengineering; Bioimaging; Colloids
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/171900
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Intricate assembly of multiple molecular chromophores assisted by protein scaffolds is essential in tuning the optical absorption and energy transfer in the light-harvesting complexes of the photosynthetic systems in nature. However, it remains a challenge to achieve such structural complexity and functionality in synthetic polymer-chromophore systems. Here, we report a series of polyester-tethered pyrrolopyrrole cyanine derivatives and their colloidal nanoparticles dispersed in water, which show tunable J- or H-aggregation excitonic coupling and near-infrared fluorescence by precise control of the polymer chain lengths, composition, and temperature. Moreover, the optimal fluorescence or photothermal effect of the J-aggregate nanoparticles enables broad applications in fluorescence or photoacoustic bioimaging and phototherapy.