abstract
Luminescence nanothermometry enables accurate, remote, and all-optically-based thermal sensing. Notwithstanding its fast development, there are serious obstacles hindering reproducibility and reliable quantitative assessment of nanothermometers, which impede the intentional design, optimization and use of these sensors. These issues include ambiguities or absence of established universal rules for quantitative evaluation, incorrect assumptions about the mechanisms behind the thermal response of the sensors as well as the dependence of the nanothermometers readout on external conditions and host materials themselves. In this perspective article, we discuss these problems and propose a series of standardization guidelines to be followed. This critical discourse constitutes the first required step towards the ubiquitous acceptance, by the scientific community, of luminescence thermometry as a reliable tool for remote temperature determination in numerous practical biomedical implementations.
keywords
UP-CONVERSION LUMINESCENCE; UPCONVERTING NANOPARTICLES; INTRACELLULAR THERMOMETRY; SENSITIVITY MODULATION; QUANTUM DOTS; TEMPERATURE; NANOCRYSTALS; FLUORESCENCE; FLUORIDE; DESIGN
subject category
Chemistry; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Materials Science; Physics
authors
Bednarkiewicz, A; Marciniak, L; Carlos, LD; Jaque, D
Groups
acknowledgements
A. B., L. D. C and D. J. acknowledge financial support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 FET Open programme under grant agreement No 801305. L.D.C. thanks the project CICECO - Aveiro Institute of Materials (Ref. FCT UID/CTM/50011/2013), financed by Portuguese funds through the Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia/Ministerio da Educacao e Ciencia (FCT/MEC) and when applicable cofinanced by FEDER under the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. A. B. acknowledge the support from the National Science Centre under Grant No. UMO-2017/27/B/ST7/01255. L. M. acknowledge the support from High sensitive thermal imaging for biomedical and microelectronic application project carried out within the First Team program of the Foundation for Polish Science co-financed by the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund. D. J. acknowledges financial support from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion of Spain (grant PID2019-106211RB-I00) and from Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad de Espana (MAT2016-75362-C3-1-R).