Lanthanide-Doped Nanoparticles for Photodynamic Therapy, Imaging, and Optical Sensing

Lanthanide-Doped Nanoparticles for Photodynamic Therapy, Imaging, and Optical Sensing

This community develops rare-earth-doped nanoparticles that convert near-infrared light into visible luminescence or reactive oxygen species, serving as agents for cancer treatment, biomedical imaging, and precise temperature measurement.

The work centers on synthesizing upconversion nanoparticles, frequently using yttrium, ytterbium, and erbium, to generate light or heat for therapeutic and diagnostic use. A major application is photodynamic therapy, where these particles activate photosensitizers like zinc phthalocyanine to produce singlet oxygen for killing cancer cells. Simultaneously, the community investigates optical thermometry, utilizing the temperature-dependent luminescence of these materials for non-invasive sensing. Recent efforts also explore metal-organic frameworks and core-shell structures to enhance energy transfer and detection sensitivity in lateral flow assays and in vivo imaging.

The community’s output is most concentrated in research on Ytterbium, accounting for 3.0% of all ytterbium research, and Lutetium, representing 2.6% of its research. It also contributes 1.5% of all research on Erbium.

The community comprises 8,396 papers, published primarily in Photodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy, Journal of Luminescence, and Nanoscale.

Recent work includes the development of electro-generated excitons for tunable lanthanide electroluminescence and the use of upconversion nanoparticles to enable efficient infrared silicon photodetectors.

Papers behind this description

• Phototherapy in cancer treatment: strategies and challenges — Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, 2025 — doi:10.1038/s41392-025-02140-y
• Near-infrared luminescence high-contrast in vivo biomedical imaging — Nature Reviews Bioengineering, 2023 — doi:10.1038/s44222-022-00002-8
• Photodynamic Therapy Review: Principles, Photosensitizers, Applications, and Future Directions — Pharmaceutics, 2021 — doi:10.3390/pharmaceutics13091332
• Supramolecular Photosensitizer Enables Oxygen-Independent Generation of Hydroxyl Radicals for Photodynamic Therapy — Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2023 — doi:10.1021/jacs.2c11868
• Engineering photodynamics for treatment, priming and imaging — Nature Reviews Bioengineering, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s44222-024-00196-z
• Near‐Infrared Luminescent Materials Incorporating Rare Earth/Transition Metal Ions: From Materials to Applications — Advanced Materials, 2024 — doi:10.1002/adma.202403076
• Oxygen-independent organic photosensitizer with ultralow-power NIR photoexcitation for tumor-specific photodynamic therapy — Nature Communications, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41467-024-46768-w
• Photodynamic therapy for cancer: mechanisms, photosensitizers, nanocarriers, and clinical studies — MedComm, 2024 — doi:10.1002/mco2.603
• Fluorescence-amplified nanocrystals in the second near-infrared window for in vivo real-time dynamic multiplexed imaging — Nature Nanotechnology, 2023 — doi:10.1038/s41565-023-01422-2
• Advances in smart nanotechnology-supported photodynamic therapy for cancer — Cell Death Discovery, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41420-024-02236-4
• The role of the light source in antimicrobial photodynamic therapy — Chemical Society Reviews, 2023 — doi:10.1039/d0cs01051k
• Size-dependent lanthanide energy transfer amplifies upconversion luminescence quantum yields — Nature Photonics, 2024 — doi:10.1038/s41566-024-01393-3
• Advancements and Applications of Lateral Flow Assays (LFAs): A Comprehensive Review — Sensors, 2025 — doi:10.3390/s25175414
• Triplets electrically turn on insulating lanthanide-doped nanoparticles — Nature, 2025 — doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09601-y
• Enabling highly efficient infrared silicon photodetectors via disordered metasurfaces with upconversion nanoparticles — Science Advances, 2025 — doi:10.1126/sciadv.adx7783
• Lattice Structure and Pure Green Upconversion Luminescence of a BiTa 7 O 19 :Er 3+ /Yb 3+ Single Crystal — Crystal Growth & Design, 2026 — doi:10.1021/acs.cgd.6c00002
• Achieving orthogonal upconversion luminescence in Er3+-doped Bi4O5Br2 for high-level anti-counterfeiting and optical thermometry — Chemical Engineering Journal, 2025 — doi:10.1016/j.cej.2025.168077
• Charge‐Transfer‐Coupled J‐Aggregation Enhances ROS Generation via Efficient Intermolecular Electron Transfer for Photodynamic Therapy — Advanced Materials, 2025 — doi:10.1002/adma.202513693