Chiral Nanographene‐Based Near‐Infrared Fluorophore with Self‐Blinking Properties

Abstract

AbstractNear‐infrared (NIR) fluorophores are highly desirable for super‐resolution fluorescence microscopy; however, their optical properties are typically relatively poor, with low photo‐intensity (mean photon number below 1000), and unfavorably high on‐off blinking duty cycle. In this work, the synthesis and characterization of tetrabenzodinaphthopyranthren (TBDNP) derivative as a novel nanographene that exhibits NIR emission in the range of 800–1000 nm with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 14% are reported. TBDNP demonstrated excellent self‐blinking properties, in particular, mean photon number of >3000 and a low on–off‐duty cycle (≈10−4), which are superior to reported NIR dyes, and can be successfully employed for the NIR super‐resolution imaging. Moreover, TBDNP serves also as a chiral fluorophore, showing notable chiroptical activities from 300 to 850 nm with a high dissymmetry factor (gabs) of 0.032 at 574 nm.