Near-infrared (NIR) phosphor-converted light-emitting diodes (pc-LEDs) are considered promising light sources for night vision, food analysis, biomedicine, and plant growth. Yet, the application potential of this technology is vulnerable to the function degradation of the phosphors used, such as thermal quenching, which needs to be addressed urgently. Herein, the NIR phosphors K2LiMF6:Cr3+ (M = Al, Ga, In) with a cubic double-perovskite structure synthesized by a green hydrofluoric acid-free hydrothermal method exhibit outstanding thermal stability. Under 450 nm excitation, the as-synthesized K2LiMF6:Cr3+ phosphors all exhibited broadband NIR emission covering 650-1000 nm peaking at 755-780 nm. The prepared K2LiAlF6:Cr3+ phosphor shows a unique zero-thermal quenching performance (I423 K/I298 K = 102%). The comprehensive effects of a wide band gap, large thermal energy barrier, weak electron-phonon coupling effect, and high structural rigidity are responsible for the suppression of thermal quenching in this material. The output power of the NIR pc-LED device reached 285 mW at 100 mA. This series of phosphors has promise in night vision and bioimaging applications.

This study introduces a novel method for detecting and measuring transparent glass sheets using hyperspectral imaging (HSI). The main goal of this study is to create a conversion technique that can accurately display spectral information from collected images, particularly in the visible light spectrum (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) areas. This technique enables the capture of relevant spectral data when used with images provided by industrial cameras. The next step in this investigation is using principal component analysis to examine the obtained hyperspectral images derived from different treated glass samples. This analytical procedure standardizes the magnitude of light wavelengths that are inherent in the HSI images. The simulated spectral profiles are obtained using the generalized inverse matrix technique on the normalized HSI images. These profiles are then matched with spectroscopic data obtained from microscopic imaging, resulting in the observation of distinct dispersion patterns. The novel use of images coloring methods effectively displays the thickness of the glass processing sheet in a visually noticeable way. Based on empirical research, changes in the thickness of the glass coating in the NIR-HSI range cause significant changes in the transmission of infrared light at different wavelengths within the NIR spectrum. This phenomenon serves as the foundation for the study of film thickness. The root mean square error inside the NIR area is impressively low, calculated to be just 0.02. This highlights the high level of accuracy achieved by the technique stated above. Potential areas of investigation that arise from this study are incorporating the proposed approach into the design of a real-time, wide-scale automated optical inspection system.

The evolution of targeted cancer theranostics has revolutionized personalized medicine by integrating diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities. Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) has emerged as a key theranostic target in the context of prostate cancer, paving the way for the clinical approval of multiple drugs. However, the persistent challenge of off-target toxicity, which plagues both conventional and advanced treatment modalities such as targeted chemotherapy and radiotherapy, thus demands further innovation. Considering this critical issue, this review discusses the recent advances in the binary treatment techniques, i.e., phototherapies, that have the potential to circumvent the key concern of off-target toxicity associated with personalized chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Precisely, an up-to-date overview of the latest developments in the near-infrared (NIR)-based phototheranostic strategies for prostate cancer by targeting PSMA has been presented. Furthermore, we have discussed the associated particulars that require specific attention in enhancing the translational potential of phototheranostic techniques.

As a reactive sulfur species, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and its derivatives play crucial role in various physiological processes, which can maintain redox homeostasis at normal levels and lead to the occurrence of many diseases at abnormal levels. So, the development of a suitable fluorescent probe is a crucial step in advancing our understanding of the role of SO2 derivatives in living organisms. Herein, we developed a near-infrared fluorescent probe (SP) based on the ICT mechanism to monitor SO2 derivatives in living organisms in a ratiometric manner. The probe SP exhibited excellent selectivity, good sensitivity, fast response rate (within 50 s), and low detection limit (1.79 µM). In addition, the cell experiment results suggested that the SP has been successfully employed for the real-time monitoring of endogenous and exogenous SO2 derivatives with negligible cytotoxicity. Moreover, SP was effective in detecting SO2 derivatives in mice.

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) has attracted widespread attention as a novel non-invasive anticancer approach. However, the diminished photosensitivity and limited oxygen exposure caused by the aggregation of traditional photosensitizers greatly impair its overall therapeutic efficacy. Herein, a series of water-soluble aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) with triphenylamine as skeleton were synthesized and exhibited bright Near-infrared (NIR) emission and strong reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. Through host-guest complexation between the multicharged triphenylamine units on AIEgens and cucurbit[10]uril (CB[10]) host molecule, supramolecular nanoassemblies were constructed and exhibited negligible phototoxicity to normal cells due to their limited oxygen contact. In contrast, the efficient release of AIEgens from nanoassemblies through competitive binding of overexpressed peptides in cancer cells with CB[10], enabled the full exploitation of the photosensitivity of AIEgens to produce highly efficient ROS, achieving selective ablation of cancer cells. Moreover, due to the restriction of intramolecular motion (RIM) upon anchored on organelle membranes through electrostatic interactions, the cationic AIEgens with weak fluorescence in physiological environment exhibited intense fluorescence emission, thus realizing imaging-guided PDT. This work may open up an avenue for the development of simple and feasible smart responsive nanomaterials for cancer treatment using supramolecular host-guest complexation strategy.

Utilizing visible and near-infrared (Vis-NIR) spectroscopy in conjunction with chemometrics methods has been widespread for identifying plant diseases. However, a key obstacle involves the extraction of relevant spectral characteristics. This study aimed to enhance sugarcane disease recognition by combining convolutional neural network (CNN) with continuous wavelet transform (CWT) spectrograms for spectral features extraction within the Vis-NIR spectra (380-1400 nm) to improve the accuracy of sugarcane diseases recognition. Using 130 sugarcane leaf samples, the obtained one-dimensional CWT coefficients from Vis-NIR spectra were transformed into two-dimensional spectrograms. Employing CNN, spectrogram features were extracted and incorporated into decision tree, K-nearest neighbour, partial least squares discriminant analysis, and random forest (RF) calibration models. The RF model, integrating spectrogram-derived features, demonstrated the best performance with an average precision of 0.9111, sensitivity of 0.9733, specificity of 0.9791, and accuracy of 0.9487. This study may offer a non-destructive, rapid, and accurate means to detect sugarcane diseases, enabling farmers to receive timely and actionable insights on the crops\' health, thus minimizing crop loss and optimizing yields.

UNASSIGNED: Fluorescent organic dyes provide imaging capabilities at cellular and sub-cellular levels. However, a common problem associated with some of the existing dyes such as the US FDA-approved indocyanine green (ICG) is their weak fluorescence emission. Alternative dyes with greater emission characteristics would be useful in various imaging applications. Complementing optical imaging, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging enables deep tissue imaging. Nano-sized delivery systems containing dyes with greater fluorescence emission as well as MR contrast agents present a promising dual-mode platform with high optical sensitivity and deep tissue imaging for image-guided surgical applications.
UNASSIGNED: We have engineered a nano-sized platform, derived from erythrocyte ghosts (EGs), with dual near-infrared fluorescence and MR characteristics by co-encapsulation of a brominated carbocyanine dye and gadobenate dimeglumine (Gd-BOPTA).
UNASSIGNED: We have investigated the use of three brominated carbocyanine dyes (referred to as BrCy106, BrCy111, and BrCy112) with various degrees of bromination, structural symmetry, and acidic modifications for encapsulation by nano-sized EGs (nEGs) and compared their resulting optical characteristics with nEGs containing ICG.
UNASSIGNED: We find that asymmetric dyes (BrCy106 and BrCy112) with one dibromobenzene ring offer greater fluorescence emission characteristics. For example, the relative fluorescence quantum yield ( ϕ ) for nEGs fabricated using 100    μ M of BrCy112 is ∼ 41 -fold higher than nEGs fabricated using the same concentrations of ICG. The dual-mode nEGs containing BrCy112 and Gd-BOPTA show a nearly twofold increase in their ϕ as compared with their single optical mode counterpart. Cytotoxicity is not observed upon incubation of SKOV3 cells with nEGs containing BrCy112.
UNASSIGNED: Erythrocyte nano-ghosts with dual optical and MR characteristics may ultimately prove useful in various biomedical imaging applications such as image-guided tumor surgery where MR imaging can be used for tumor staging and mapping, and fluorescence imaging can help visualize small tumor nodules for resection.

The utilization of actual biological tissue (e.g., pork meat samples) and tissue-mimicking phantoms for optical-based in-body data and energy transfer studies is crucial. Near-infrared (NIR) light, a part of the light spectrum that falls between visible light and infrared, is highly advantageous as a carrier for data transmission due to its superior ability to penetrate biological tissue, for instance, the human body. Using pork meat samples as a propagation medium for prolonged experiments is challenging due to the deterioration of meat quality caused by drying in the temperature chamber. Typically, a controlled-temperature chamber can be utilized to warm the tissue samples to 37 °C. Some experiments need to be carried out over long periods, in some cases exceeding one hour, including the demonstration of transmitting large-size data (e.g., high-definition images or videos) in real-time through biological tissue using NIR LED. Moreover, for statistical analysis, some experiments need to be repeated, therefore degradation of the tissue sample should be avoided. Furthermore, experiments may also encompass investigations into optical wireless power transfer (OWPT) conducted on biological tissues under NIR illumination and employing energy harvester-based commercial photovoltaic cells (PV) at the receiving ends, which would require a long time to charge the storage (e.g., battery or supercapacitor) fully. Using phantoms for such an experiment is also not straightforward, requiring careful consideration, such as standardization issues. One possible approach to address this challenge is to conduct experiments in a free-space environment (e.g., sample-free) while guaranteeing that the optical power received in free-space is equivalent to that obtained through biological tissue. This can be achieved by carefully controlling the LED\'s current and arranging the optical channel\'s distance to achieve comparable results. The received optical power is the primary parameter for comparing free-space and biological tissue setups. This dataset provides settings for NIR LEDs ( P m a x = 375 mW and λ = 810 nm), allowing in-body communication experiments in a free-space environment. The LED\'s current settings in this dataset (free-space) are equivalent in comparison to those used in a test-bed using biological tissue with 5 (five) different variations of LED currents (i.e., 500 mA, 400 mA, 300 mA, 200 mA, and 100 mA). The dataset consists of six pork meat samples with different thicknesses and fat-muscle layer compositions, resulting in 36 data points. This dataset holds significant potential for reuse in any biomedical research, particularly in the fields of in-body communication and energy transfer utilizing light.

Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is a powerful tool for assessing microvascular hemodynamic in deep tissues. Recent advances in sensors, lasers, and deep learning have further boosted the development of new DCS methods. However, newcomers might feel overwhelmed, not only by the already-complex DCS theoretical framework but also by the broad range of component options and system architectures. To facilitate new entry to this exciting field, we present a comprehensive review of DCS hardware architectures (continuous-wave, frequency-domain, and time-domain) and summarize corresponding theoretical models. Further, we discuss new applications of highly integrated silicon single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) sensors in DCS, compare SPADs with existing sensors, and review other components (lasers, sensors, and correlators), as well as data analysis tools, including deep learning. Potential applications in medical diagnosis are discussed and an outlook for the future directions is provided, to offer effective guidance to embark on DCS research.

Myocardial infarction (MI), one of the leading causes of death worldwide, urgently needs further understanding of the pathological process and effective therapies. SO2 in endoplasmic reticulum in several cardiovascular diseases has been reported to be particularly important. However, the role of endogenous SO2 in endoplasmic reticulum in treating myocardial infarction is still ambiguous and needs to be elucidated. Herein, we developed TPA-HI-SO2 as the first endoplasmic reticulum-targeting fluorescent agent for specific imaging and detection of sulfur dioxide derivatives both in vitro and in vivo. TPA-HI-SO2 shows a highly sensitive and selective response to SO2 derivatives over other anions in aqueous solution with a satisfactory response time and detection limit. Furthermore, TPA-HI-SO2 decreased the SO2 concentration in H9C2 cells treated with H2O2 and in an MI mouse model. Most importantly, TPA-HI-SO2 protects H9C2 cells from H2O2-induced apoptosis and obviously protects against myocardial infarction in vivo through neutralization of endogenous SO2. Taken together, we developed the first ER-targeting ratiometric fluorescent probe for endogenous SO2 with excellent biocompatibility, high selectivity and sensitivity in this paper. More importantly, we demonstrated an obvious increase of the endogenous SO2 concentration in a myocardial infarction mouse model for the first time, which suggests that neutralization of endogenous SO2 in endoplasmic reticulum could be a promising therapeutic strategy for myocardial infarction.