Recently, fluorescence-based sensors have shown great potential since they have many advantages, such as stability, easy design and operation, and regeneration. These sensors rely on changes in luminescence intensity as the reporting mechanism (for example, an increase in nonradiative decay rate leading to decreasing luminescence). However, intensity-based sensors are often susceptible to errors due to changes in probe concentration, the efficiency of excitation or detection, or a lack of specificity for temperature (for example, luminescence may be quenched by oxygen, sensor aggregation, or changes in pH, in addition to the aforementioned reduction due to temperature increase). Changes in the sensor local environment are difficult to control in complicated systems such as cells or micro-devices and can thereby cause inaccurate measurement. Compared with them, dual-emitting sensors show resolvable luminescence emissions from two different excited states. Thus, dual-emitting sensors have attracted much attention since they operate as “non-contact” tools and accurate measurement.<br/>Thus, herein, a novel dual-emitting-based sensing paper is prepared by combining the copper nanoclusters (CuNCs) and carbon dots (CDs) on the filter paper, which can monitor the atmospheric humidity in the living environment. The dual-emitting paper shows bright fluorescence and has the diameter at 8 cm with uniform and homogeneous surface. The red fluorescence of CuNCs changes with various humidity due to changing their aggregation state, while the blue fluorescence of CDs keep constant. Moreover, the excellent linear relationship between fluorescence intensity ratio (red/blue) and humidity as well as the obvious color transformation of dual-emitting paper in the humidity range from 40% to 80% can be observed. Besides, the distinct color change and fast recovery capability of dual-emitting paper illustrate that they have promising visualization sensing platform for humidity.

Dual-emitting-based sensing nanomaterials

256th National Meeting (2018)

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