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A facile “ship-in-a-bottle” approach to construct nanorattles based on upconverting lanthanide-doped fluorides

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Abstract

Rattle structure is a topic of great interest in design and application of nanomaterials due to the unique core@void@shell architecture and the integration of functions. Herein, we developed a novel “ship-in-a-bottle” method to fabricate upconverting (UC) luminescent nanorattles by incorporating lanthanide-doped fluorides into hollow mesoporous silica. The size of nanorattles and the filling amount of fluorides can be well controlled. In addition, the modification of silica shell (with phenylene and amine groups) and the variation of efficient UC fluorides (NaYF4:Yb,Er, NaLuF4:Yb,Er, NaGdF4:Yb,Er and LiYF4:Yb,Er) were readily achieved. The resulting nanorattles exhibited a high capacity and pH-dependent release of the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). Furthermore, we employed these nanorattles in proof-of-concept UC-monitoring drug release by utilizing the energy transfer process from UC fluorides to DOX, thus revealing the great potential of the nanorattles as efficient cancer theranostic agent.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials Chemistry and Physics, and State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Fuzhou, 350002, China

    Shan Lu, Datao Tu, Xingjun Li, Renfu Li & Xueyuan Chen

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  1. Shan Lu
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  2. Datao Tu
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  3. Xingjun Li
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  4. Renfu Li
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  5. Xueyuan Chen
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Correspondence to Xueyuan Chen.

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Lu, S., Tu, D., Li, X. et al. A facile “ship-in-a-bottle” approach to construct nanorattles based on upconverting lanthanide-doped fluorides. Nano Res. 9, 187–197 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0979-4

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