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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Apr 26.
Published in final edited form as: Small. 2016 Feb 22;12(15):1968–1992. doi: 10.1002/smll.201503396

Table 3.

Examples of dye-based polymer NPs and their characteristics. Typical examples of conjugated polymers and quantum dots are given for comparison.

Dye Polymer Size
(nm)
Dye content
(wt%)
λabs
(nm)
λem
(nm)
QY
(%)
BT(a)
(M-1cm-1)
BE(b) B/V
(M-1m-1nm-3)
Ref.
Molecular organic dyes
Rh-101 - 1 100 565 588 90 9×104 166000 [103]

Quantum dots
QD-605 - 11 (c) 605 55 3.2×105 - 458
QD-585 - 8 (c) 585 60 1.8x105 - 680

Conjugated polymer NPs
PFBT PFBT 10 100 460 540 30 3×106 30x QD-565 5700 [107]
MEH-PPV MEH-PPV 15 100 485 590 1 2.6x106 1500 [17a]
MEH-PPV MEH-PPV 74 90 485 593 1 1.4x108 - 665 [108]
MEH-PPV MEH-PPV, PEG 3.33 - 496 593 1 1×104 - 511 [109]

Polymer NPs loaded with
conventional dyes
Nile red PS 100 0.7 570 635 23 7x107 - 134 [75]
DiD PLGA 66 0.5 650 667 21 1.3x107 - 84 [57]
Fluorescein PS-b-PEG 24 0.5 495 519 22 5.1x105 - 120 [62a]
dyes bearing bulky side groups
LR PLGA 38 5 575 605 50 7.5×106 18x QD-585 261 [22c]
Mes-BODIPY PS 16 3.5 526 540 77 5.1x106 - 2300 [22a]
aggregation induced emission dyes
AIE6 DSPE-PEG 32 33 423 539 58 3.5x107 10x QD-655 1200 [59a]
AIE5 PS-b-PMAA 67 20 365 486 62 1.7x108 - 1000 [62b]
dyes with bulky counterions
Rhodamine B/F5-TPB PLGA 40 5 560 580 20 1.8x107 6x QD-605 600 [23]
Rhodamine B/F5-TPB P(MMA-co-MAS) 15 5 560 580 60 3.0×106 10x QD-585 1600 [54b]
polymerizable dyes
PDI (50,000) PMMA 40 2.4 520 550 50 1.0×107 50-220x PDI 310 [22b]
BODIPY PS-PEG 60 1.3 529 544 35 1.4×108 - 470 [96]

(a) BT is the theoretical and experimental brightness

(b) BE the experimental brightness.

(c) Calculated for excitation at 532 nm. Rh-101: rhodamine 101.