title: Organic-Nanowire-SiO2Core-Shell Microlasers with Highly Polarized and Narrow Emissions for Biological Imaging.
abstract: Development of luminescence probes with polarized and narrow emissions simultaneously is helpful for removing multiply scattered light and enables multiplexing detection, but it remains challenging to use conventional organic dyes, fluorescence proteins, and quantum dots. Here, we demonstrated smart one-dimensional microlaser probes (MLPs) by coating a thin layer of silica shell on the surface of organic nanowires (ONWs) of 1,4-dimethoxy-2,5-di[4'-(methylthio)styryl]benzene (TDSB), namely, ONW@SiO2core-shell structures. Different from the Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavity formed between two end-faces of semiconductor nanowires, whispering gallery mode (WGM) microresonators are built within the rectangular cross section of ONW@SiO2MLPs. This enables a lasing threshold as low as 1.54 μJ/cm2, above which lasing emissions are obtained with a full width at half-maximum (fwhm) < 5 nm and a degree of polarization (DOP) > 83%. Meanwhile, small dimensions of ONW@SiO2MLPs with a side-length of ca. 500 nm and a length of 3-8 μm help to reduce their perturbations in living cells. With the help of mesoporous silica shells, which provide both high biocompatibility and good photostability, ONW@SiO2MLPs can be easily introduced into the cell cytoplasm through natural endocytosis. Using their narrow and highly polarized lasing emissions in vitro, we demonstrate that it is possible to tag individual cells using ONW@SiO2MLPs with high stability.
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory for Optical Materials and Photonic Devices, Department of Chemistry, Capital Normal University , Beijing 100048, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Changfu
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory for Optical Materials and Photonic Devices, Department of Chemistry, Capital Normal University , Beijing 100048, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhenzhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Sciences, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences of Ministry of Education, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, and Institute of Systems Biomedicine, Peking University Health Science Center , Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory for Optical Materials and Photonic Devices, Department of Chemistry, Capital Normal University , Beijing 100048, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hongjuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: School of Basic Medical Sciences, Key Laboratory of Molecular Cardiovascular Sciences of Ministry of Education, Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, and Institute of Systems Biomedicine, Peking University Health Science Center , Beijing 100191, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Lemin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Beijing Key Laboratory for Optical Materials and Photonic Devices, Department of Chemistry, Capital Normal University , Beijing 100048, P.R. China.|Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Tianjin University and Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemical Science and Engineering (Tianjin) , Tianjin 300072, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hongbing
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4528-189X
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fu
mesh_terms: D049449:Luminescence; D053770:Nanowires; D045663:Quantum Dots; D012666:Semiconductors; D012822:Silicon Dioxide
chemical_list: D012822:Silicon Dioxide
keywords: biological imaging; core−shell structure; intracellular microlaser; organic nanowire; polarization probes