Nanoscale Metal-Organic Frameworks and Metal-Organic Layers with Two-Photon-Excited Fluorescence

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) based on 9,10-diphenylanthracene-derived ligands had been reported to exhibit upconverted fluorescence through triplet-triplet annihilation. We found that zirconium MOFs based on 9,10-diphenylanthracene can also give upconverted fluorescence via two-photon absorption without adding a triplet photosensitizer when a femtosecond pulsed laser is used as the excitation source. By tuning the synthetic condition, we obtained nanoscale MOFs of UiO structure in both octahedral and hexagonal nanoplate shapes, as well as a hexagonal nanoplate of MOFs of hcp-UiO structure and two-dimensional metal-organic layers. All of them, as well as a homogeneous solution of the 9,10-diphenylanthracene ligand, exhibit upconverted fluorescence upon excitation using a laser pulse of 60 fs with a pulse energy of ∼1.1 × 10⁶ nJ/cm² (unfocused). Moreover, we observed different emission spectra by two-photon excitation compared to those by one-photon excitation, which indicates access to a unique initial excited state via two-photon excitation. This phenomenon is not observed for a homogeneous solution of the ligand. These nanoscale MOFs may find application in two-photon fluorescence imaging.