Morphology Tuning of Self-Assembled Perylene Monoimide from Nanoparticles to Colloidosomes with Enhanced Excimeric NIR Emission for Bioimaging

Organic near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes have been recognized as an emerging class of materials exhibiting a great potential in advanced bioanalytical applications. However, synthesizing such organic probes that could simultaneously work in the NIR spectral range and have large Stokes shift, high stability in biological systems, and high photostability have been proven challenging. In this work, aggregation induced excimeric NIR emission in aqueous media was observed from a suitably substituted perylene monoimide (PeIm) dye. Controlled entrapment of the dye into pluronic F127 micellar system to preserve its monomeric green emission in aqueous media was also established. The aggregation process of the PeIm dye to form organic nanoparticles (NPs) was evaluated experimentally by the means of transmission electron microscope imaging as well as theoretically by the molecular dynamics simulation studies. Tuning the morphology along with the formation of colloidosomes by the controlled self-aggregation of PeIm NPs in aqueous suspension was demonstrated successfully. Finally, both excimeric and monomeric emissive PeIm NPs as well as PeIm colloidosomes were employed for the bioimaging in vitro.