The intrinsic near-infrared photoluminescence (fluorescence) of single-walled carbon nanotubes exhibits unique photostability, narrow bandwidth, penetration through biological media, environmental sensitivity, and both chromatic variety and range. Biomedical applications exploiting this large family of fluorophores will require the spectral and spatial resolution of individual (n,m) nanotube species’ fluorescence and its modulation within live cells and tissues, which is not possible with current microscopy methods. We present a wide-field hyperspectral approach to spatially delineate and spectroscopically measure single nanotube fluorescence in living systems. This approach resolved up to 17 distinct (n,m) species (chiralities) with single nanotube spatial resolution in live mammalian cells, murine tissues ex vivo, and zebrafish endothelium in vivo. We anticipate that this approach will facilitate multiplexed nanotube imaging in biomedical applications while enabling deep-tissue optical penetration, exceptional photostability, and single-molecule resolution in vivo.

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Daniel A. Heller, Daniel Roxbury, Prakrit V. Jena, Ryan M, Williams, Balázs Enyedi, Philipp Niethammer, Stéphane Marcet, Francesca Mangiarini, Marc Verhaegen, and Sébastien Blais-Ouellette, "Near-infrared hyperspectral microscopy of carbon nanotube photoluminescence enables 17-color imaging (Conference Presentation)," Proc. SPIE 9721, Nanoscale Imaging, Sensing, and Actuation for Biomedical Applications XIII, 97210N (Presented at SPIE BiOS: February 17, 2016; Published: 27 April 2016); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2211387.4848770134001.