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Luminescence lifetime imaging of ultra-long room temperature phosphorescence on a smartphone

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Abstract

Luminescence lifetime imaging plays an important role in distinguishing the luminescence decay rates in time-resolved luminescence imaging. However, traditional imaging instruments used for detecting lifetimes within milliseconds would be time-consuming when imaging ultra-long luminescence lifetimes over subseconds. Herein, we present an accessible and simple optical system for detecting lifetimes of persistent luminescence. A smartphone integrated with a UV LED, a dichroic mirror, and a lens was used for recording the persistent luminescence. With only a few seconds of data acquisition, a luminescence lifetime image could be processed from the video by exponential fitting of the gray level of each pixel to the delay time. Since this approach only requires single excitation, no synchronous control is needed, greatly simplifying the apparatus and saving the cost. The apparatus was successfully used for ultra-long luminescence lifetime imaging of mouse tissue dyed with a persistent luminescence molecule. This miniaturized apparatus exhibits huge potentiality in time-resolved luminescence imaging for luminescence study and biological detection.

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Acknowledgements

We thank HUST Analytical and Testing Center for allowing us to use its facilities.

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51803065, 52073109), Program for HUST Academic Frontier Youth Team (2015-01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Lab for Optoelectronics and Key Lab of Materials Chemistry for Energy Conversion and Storage of Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, China

    Zece Zhu, Ye Sun, Teng Ma, Di Tian & Jintao Zhu

  2. Hubei Key Lab of Biomass Fibers and Eco-dyeing & Finishing, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Wuhan Textile University, Wuhan, 430073, Hubei, China

    Di Tian

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  1. Zece Zhu
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  2. Ye Sun
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  3. Teng Ma
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  5. Jintao Zhu
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Correspondence to Di Tian or Jintao Zhu.

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The animal study was conducted according to the Guide of the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, Tongji Medical College, HUST.

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Zhu, Z., Sun, Y., Ma, T. et al. Luminescence lifetime imaging of ultra-long room temperature phosphorescence on a smartphone. Anal Bioanal Chem 413, 3291–3297 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-021-03266-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-021-03266-y

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