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Updated: Aug 15, 2025

Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging of Molecular Rotors in Living Cells
Published on: February 9, 2012
Comment on "Dependence of the Fluorescent Lifetime τ on the Concentration at High Dilution"
Anne Myers Kelley1, David F Kelley1
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, Merced, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, California95343, United States.
Abstract:
A recent Letter in this Journal (Langhals and Schlücker, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 202213, 7568-7573) reported a dependence of the fluorescence lifetime of a dye on concentration and attributed it to "electromagnetic interactions with distant resonating structures" on a length scale of more than 100 nm. We show that their results can be explained as a straightforward result of absorption and re-emission of the fluorescence ("radiative energy transport"), which lengthens the apparent lifetime at higher concentrations. This effect has been well-documented in the literature many times. We show that simulations of the fluorescence decays accounting for radiative transport can reproduce the authors' results without postulating any new electromagnetic mechanism.

