Synthesis and Characterization of Upconversion Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy

Various fields have been paid attention to upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) because of its unique optical properties. Moreover, to use the UC luminescent techniques through cell images for identified apoptosis/necrosis of cancer cells have been performed. They have been studied for a versatile biomedical application such as a biosensing tool, or delivery of active forms of medicines inside living cells. UCNPs have distinctive characteristics such as photoluminescence, special emission, low background fluorescence signal and good colloidal stability, which have many advantages compared with the organic dyes and quantum dots. UCNPs have not only a great potential for imaging (UC luminescence) but also therapies (photo-thermal therapy, PTT and photo-dynamic therapy, PDT) in cancer diagnostics. Therefore, we report the enhancement of upconversion red emission in NaYF4:Yb3+,Er3+ nanoparticles, synthesized via solid-state method with the thermal decomposition of trifluoroacetate as precursors and organic solvent at a high boiling point. The UCNPs have an emission in the field of near infrared wavelength, cubic shape and nano-size in length. In this study, we will further investigate it for cancer therapy with NIR optical detection onto the solid substrate.