Open Access Conference Proceedings

Photon-upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) are lanthanide-doped nanocrystals that can be excited by near-infrared light and emit photon-upconversion luminescence of shorter wavelengths. Advantages of UCNPs include near-infrared excitation, multiple and narrow emission bands, negligible autofluorescence and high stability, which make UCNPs ideal luminescence label for use in biological and chemical assays. These assays – e.g. upconversion-linked immunosorbent assay, western blot, lateral flow assay, gel electrophoresis, thin layer chromatography – commonly require the scanning of a planar surface with a high spatial resolution and an excellent sensitivity. The availability of commercial equipment is recently limited because of the novelty of the photon-upconversion phenomenon. Therefore, we report on the construction of photon-upconversion laser scanner. The scanner consists of a laser scanning head, which is attached to a xy-moving stage. The scanning head itself is constructed as an epiluminescence detector with excitation wavelength of 976 nm. A CCD array spectroscope is connected to the laser head and serves as a sensitive detector of photon-upconversion luminescence. The scanner possesses a spatial resolution of 200 µm, the scanning rate is up to 57 points per second and the sensitivity reaches down to single photon-upconversion nanoparticle.

Keywords: Photon-upconversion, nanoparticle, laser scanner, hyperspectral imaging

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