Standardizing luminescence nanothermometry for biomedical applications
- 1. Institute of Low Temperature and Structure Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland E-mail: a.bednarkiewicz@intibs.pl, l.marciniak@intibs.pl b Department of Physics and CICECO – Aveiro Institute of Materials, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal c Fuorescence Imaging Group, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid 28049, Spain d Nanobiology Group, Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria, Ctra. Colmenar Viejo, km., 9100 28034 Madrid, Spain
Description
Luminescence nanothermometry enables accurate, remote, and all-optically-based thermal sensing. Notwithstanding its fast development, there are serious obstacles hindering reproducibility and reliable quantitative assessment of nanothermometers, which impede the intentional design, optimization and use of these sensors. These issues include ambiguities or absence of established universal rules for quantitative evaluation, incorrect assumptions about the mechanisms behind the thermal response of the sensors as well as the dependence of the nanothermometers readout on external conditions and host materials themselves. In this perspective article, we discuss these problems and propose a series of standardization guidelines to be followed. This critical discourse constitutes the first required step towards the ubiquitous acceptance, by the scientific community, of luminescence thermometry as a reliable tool for remote temperature determination in numerous practical biomedical implementations.