Synthesis, optical properties and biological imaging of the rare earth complexes with curcumin and pyridine

Abstract

Two novel rare earth complexes with curcumin and pyridine have been synthesized and characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, 1H-NMR, MS spectroscopy, and thermogravimetric (TG) analysis. The photophysical properties were studied both experimentally and theoretically. The results suggest that the obtained two complexes exhibited obvious two-photon absorption in the range 700–860 nm in DMSO solution, and that presented a significant enhancement of single-/two-photon excited fluorescence and TPA cross section values compared with the free ligand. Additionally, two-photon microscopy fluorescent imaging of MCF-7 cells labeled with the title complexes revealed their potential application as a biological fluorescent probe.