Mesoporous silica nanoparticles combining two-photon excited fluorescence and magnetic properties

A new approach to the synthesis of multifunctional nanoparticles was developed by using covalent anchoring of cyano-bridged coordination polymer Ni2+/[Fe(CN)6]3− to the surface of two-photon dye-doped mesoporous silica nanoparticles. The obtained hybrid nanoparticles were studied by infrared (IR) spectroscopy, nitrogen adsorption (BET), X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), luminescence, and magnetic analysis. The synthesis leads to homogeneously dispersed uni-shaped nanoparticles of around 100 nm in length that are coated with cyano-bridged metallic coordination polymer nanoparticles. These hybrid nanoparticles combine effective two-photon excited fluorescence, porosity, high transverse nuclear relaxivity values (i.e. the magnetic resonance imaging efficiency) and superparamagnetic properties.