Efficient formation of luminescent lanthanide(III) complexes by solid-phase synthesis and on-resin screening

Time-resolved luminescence measurements of luminescent lanthanide complexes have advantages in biological assays and high-throughput screening, owing to their high sensitivity. In spite of the recent advances in their energy-transfer mechanism and molecular-orbital-based computational molecular design, it is still difficult to estimate the quantum yields of new luminescent lanthanide complexes. Herein, solid-phase libraries of luminescent lanthanide complexes were prepared through amide-condensation and Pd-catalyzed coupling reactions and their luminescent properties were screened with a microplate reader. Good correlation was observed between the time-resolved luminescence intensities of the solid-phase libraries and those of the corresponding complexes that were synthesized by using liquid-phase chemistry. This method enabled the rapid and efficient development of new sensitizers for Sm(III), Eu(III), and Tb(III) luminescence. Thus, solid-phase combinatorial synthesis combined with on-resin screening led to the discovery of a wide variety of luminescent sensitizers.