Synergism between organic and inorganic moieties: in the search of new hybrid materials for optics and biomedicine

Abstract

In this work different versatile photoactive hybrid materials with interesting features for optics and biomedicine are achieved and exhaustively characterized. Firstly, by means of the occlusion of different fluorescent dyes, by the crystallization inclusion method, into several 1D-channeled magnesium aluminophosphate (MgAPO) hosts (with different sized and shaped pores), optically dense fluorescent hybrid materials which show highly anisotropic response to linearly polarized light are obtained. Depending on the dye embedded within the selected MgAPO framework, interesting applications have been attained, such as one-directional artificial photonic antenna systems covering the whole UV-Visible spectral range, Second Harmonic Generators under NIR radiation, optically switchable hybrid systems and white light emitters. White light emission is also obtained from the luminescence that arises from embedding simultaneously different small aromatic molecules into a Metal Organic Framework (MOF), named [Zn2(bdc)2(dpNDI)]n, which contains a photoactive naphtalemediimide as organic pillar. The incorporation of halide-substituted aromatic molecules into this MOF also promotes phosphorescence at room temperature. Finally, the attachment of a BODIPY chromophore to a cyclometalated Ir(III) metallic centre results in the achievement of efficient photosensitizers for singlet oxygen generation upon visible excitation light. Moreover, these hybrid compounds also show fluorescence emission, thus, they are interesting for bioimaging as well, and as a consequence, extensible to their use in theragnosis.