Chemical Energy Lights Up Europium-Based Ultra-bright Afterglow for Bioanalysis Application

Photochemical afterglow materials are gaining great attention for the property to continuously emit light after the excitation source is removed. However, their limited luminescence quantum yield (QY) and brightness hinder the use in biological applications. In this study, we introduce a novel photochemical afterglow system that combines a newly designed photoenergy cache unit (PCU) with an emitter through coordination covalent bonds. The PCU boasts a dark state to significantly emit photons only through chemiexcitation in the process of photochemical reactions, facilitating direct energy transfer to the emitter and resulting in bright afterglow. The related mechanisms further guided us to achieve the highest reported afterglow luminescence quantum yield of 27.5 %. The system can be encapsulated and dispersed in aqueous solutions for in vivo bioimaging in living mice under mild and simple conditions (low concentration, low excitation power, short excitation time, short exposure time), and also for in vitro diagnostic through lateral flow immunoassay, enabling the highly sensitive detection of the inflammatory biomarker serum amyloid A (SAA) and demonstrating excellent correlation with clinical test results. This study offers new insights into enhancing luminescence QY and brightness of afterglow, highlighting the potential of such systems for further biomedical applications.