resumo
Non-invasive precise thermometers working at the nanoscale with high spatial resolution, where the conventional methods are ineffective, have emerged over the last couple of years as a very active field of research. This has been strongly stimulated by the numerous challenging requests arising from nanotechnology and biomedicine. This critical review offers a general overview of recent examples of luminescent and non-luminescent thermometers working at nanometric scale. Luminescent thermometers encompass organic dyes, QDs and Ln(3+) ions as thermal probes, as well as more complex thermometric systems formed by polymer and organic-inorganic hybrid matrices encapsulating these emitting centres. Non-luminescent thermometers comprise of scanning thermal microscopy, nanolithography thermometry, carbon nanotube thermometry and biomaterials thermometry. Emphasis has been put on ratiometric examples reporting spatial resolution lower than 1 micron, as, for instance, intracellular thermometers based on organic dyes, thermoresponsive polymers, mesoporous silica NPs, QDs, and Ln(3+)-based up-converting NPs and beta-diketonate complexes. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the development for highly sensitive ratiometric thermometers operating at the physiological temperature range with submicron spatial resolution.
palavras-chave
SCANNING THERMAL MICROSCOPY; ATOMIC-FORCE MICROSCOPY; SINGLE LIVING CELLS; FLUORESCENT POLYMERIC THERMOMETER; SYNTHETIC RNA THERMOMETERS; CONTROLLED GENE-EXPRESSION; TEMPERATURE SENSOR FILMS; QUANTUM DOTS; CARBON NANOTUBES; INTRACELLULAR TEMPERATURE
categoria
Chemistry; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Materials Science; Physics
autores
Brites, CDS; Lima, PP; Silva, NJO; Millan, A; Amaral, VS; Palacio, F; Carlos, LD
nossos autores
Carlos Brites
Professor associado
Luís Carlos
Professor Catedrático
Nuno João Silva
Investigador Principal
Patrícia Pereira Lima
Bolseiro de pós-Doutoramento
Vitor Brás Sequeira Amaral
Professor CatedráticoProjectos
agradecimentos
The authors are grateful to Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal), COMPETE and FEDER programs (PEst-C/CTM/LA0011/2011 and PTDC/CTM/101324/2008) and Integrated Spanish-Portuguese Action PT2009-0131 for financial support. The work in Zaragoza has been supported by the grants MAT2007-61621 and CONSOLIDER CSD2007-00010 from the Ministry of Education. LDC acknowledges Nanobiotec-CAPES network for a grant, whereas as CDSB (SFRH/BD/38472/2007 grant), PPL (SFRH/BPD/34365/2006 grant) and NJOS (Ciencia 2008 program) thank FCT.