Novel electrochemiluminescent materials for sensor applications

Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) uses redox reactions to generate light at an electrode surface, and is gaining increasing attention for biosensor development due to its high sensitivity and excellent signal-to-noise ratio. ECL studies of monodisperse oligofluorene-truxenes (T4 series) have been reported previously, showing the production of stable radical cations and radical anions, generating blue ECL. The compound in this study differs from the original structures, in that there are 2,1,3-benzothiadazole (BT) units inserted between the first and second fluorene units of the quarterfluorenyl arms. It was therefore anticipated that the incorporation of these highly luminescent and ECL-active compounds into sensor development would lead to significant decreases in detection limits. In this contribution, we report on the impact of incorporating these novel complexes into sensor devices on the ECL efficiency, as well as the ability of these to improve the detection sensitivity and decrease the limit of detection using the reagent-free detection of model analytes. The real world impact of these compounds is elucidated through the comparison with more standard ECL materials such as ruthenium-based compounds. The potential for multiple applications is to be examined within this contribution.