Vieira Perrella Rafael, Derroso Gustavo, de Sousa Filho Paulo Cesar
Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (Unicamp), R. Monteiro Lobato, 270, Campinas, São Paulo 13083-970, Brazil.
ACS Omega. 2024 Aug 1;9(32):34974-34980. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.4c04835. eCollection 2024 Aug 13.
Luminescence thermometry is the state-of-the-art technique for remote nanoscale temperature sensing, offering numerous promising cutting-edge applications. Advancing nanothermometry further requires rational design of phosphors and well-defined, comprehensive mathematical treatment of spectral information. However, important questions regarding improper signal processing in ratiometric luminescence thermometry are continuously overlooked in the literature. Here, we demonstrate that systematic errors arising from background/signal superposition impact the calculated thermometric quality parameters of ratiometric thermometers. We designed ultraviolet-excitable (Y,Eu)VO and (Y,Eu)(P,V)O nanocrystals showing overlapped VO and Eu emissions to discuss systematically how uncorrected background emissions cause magnified (∼10×) temperature uncertainties and undervalued (∼60%) relative thermal sensitivities. Adequate separation of spectral contributions from the VO background and the Eu signals via baseline correction is necessary to prevent underestimation of the thermometric performances. The described approach can be potentially extended to other luminescent thermometers to account for signal superposition, thus enabling to circumvent computation of apparent, miscalculated thermometric parameters.
发光测温法是用于远程纳米级温度传感的先进技术，具有众多前景广阔的前沿应用。进一步推进纳米测温技术需要对磷光体进行合理设计，并对光谱信息进行明确、全面的数学处理。然而，文献中一直忽视了关于比率发光测温法中不当信号处理的重要问题。在此，我们证明了背景/信号叠加产生的系统误差会影响比率温度计计算出的测温质量参数。我们设计了紫外激发的(Y,Eu)VO和(Y,Eu)(P,V)O纳米晶体，它们的VO和Eu发射重叠，以系统地讨论未经校正的背景发射如何导致放大的（约10倍）温度不确定性和低估的（约60%）相对热灵敏度。通过基线校正充分分离VO背景和Eu信号的光谱贡献对于防止低估测温性能是必要的。所描述的方法可能会扩展到其他发光温度计，以考虑信号叠加，从而避免计算表观的、错误计算的测温参数。
