Anti-stokes fluorescent probe with incoherent excitation

Although inorganic anti-Stokes fluorescent probes have long been developed, the operational mode of today's most advanced examples still involves the harsh requirement of coherent laser excitation, which often yields unexpected light disturbance or even photon-induced deterioration during optical imaging. Here, we demonstrate an efficient anti-Stokes fluorescent probe with incoherent excitation. We show that the probe can be operated under light-emitting diode excitation and provides tunable anti-Stokes energy shift and decay kinetics, which allow for rapid and deep tissue imaging over a very large area with negligible photodestruction. Charging of the probe can be achieved by either X-rays or ultraviolet-visible light irradiation, which enables multiplexed detection and function integration with standard X-ray medical imaging devices.