van Swieten Thomas P, Meijerink Andries, Rabouw Freddy T
Debye Institute for Nanomaterials Science, Utrecht University, 3584 CC Utrecht, The Netherlands.
ACS Photonics. 2022 Apr 20;9(4):1366-1374. doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.2c00039. Epub 2022 Mar 11.
Materials with temperature-dependent luminescence can be used as local thermometers when incorporated in, for example, a biological environment or chemical reactor. Researchers have continuously developed new materials aiming for the highest sensitivity of luminescence to temperature. Although the comparison of luminescent materials based on their temperature sensitivity is convenient, this parameter gives an incomplete description of the potential performance of the materials in applications. Here, we demonstrate how the precision of a temperature measurement with luminescent nanocrystals depends not only on the temperature sensitivity of the nanocrystals but also on their luminescence strength compared to measurement noise and background signal. After first determining the noise characteristics of our instrumentation, we show how the uncertainty of a temperature measurement can be predicted quantitatively. Our predictions match the temperature uncertainties that we extract from repeated measurements, over a wide temperature range (303-473 K), for different CCD readout settings, and for different background levels. The work presented here is the first study that incorporates all of these practical issues to accurately calculate the uncertainty of luminescent nanothermometers. This method will be important for the optimization and development of luminescent nanothermometers.
当被掺入例如生物环境或化学反应器中时，具有温度依赖性发光的材料可用作局部温度计。研究人员不断开发新材料，以实现发光对温度的最高灵敏度。尽管基于温度灵敏度对发光材料进行比较很方便，但该参数并不能完整描述材料在应用中的潜在性能。在这里，我们展示了使用发光纳米晶体进行温度测量的精度不仅取决于纳米晶体的温度灵敏度，还取决于与测量噪声和背景信号相比其发光强度。在首先确定我们仪器的噪声特性之后，我们展示了如何定量预测温度测量的不确定性。我们的预测与我们在很宽的温度范围（303 - 473 K）内、针对不同的电荷耦合器件（CCD）读出设置以及不同背景水平从重复测量中提取的温度不确定性相匹配。这里介绍的工作是第一项将所有这些实际问题纳入以准确计算发光纳米温度计不确定性的研究。这种方法对于发光纳米温度计的优化和开发将很重要。
