Lanthanide-containing persistent luminescence materials with superbright red afterglow and excellent solution processability

Lanthanide-containing persistent luminescence materials are promising candidates for a wide range of applications by virtue of splendid superiorities in afterglow performance. However, it is a crucial challenge to achieve high-quality afterglow materials at the attractive nanoscale, with uniform size, controllable morphology, and satisfying brightness. Herein, a bottom-up approach was developed to construct the high-quality afterglow nanoparticles, incorporating luminescent lanthanide complex and organic molecular ingredients under mild conditions. These nanoparticles exhibited intrinsic lanthanide luminescence with superbright red afterglow (>10 cd m−2) in a homogeneous solution. The afterglow solution with excellent processability can serve as ideal building blocks for the on-demand fabrication of functional nanomaterials. Water-dispersible afterglow nanoparticles with state-of-the-art high brightness were uniformly constructed to perform whole-blood lateral flow assay of procalcitonin with a naked-eye detection limit of 0.5 ng mL−1, promoting the point-of-care testing development.