DCM Dyes

DCM dyes are important organic luminescent materials, and due to light weight, long life and high stability, they are widely used in many fields, such as fluorescent detection, biochemical analysis, and organic electroluminescent devices. According to the luminescence colors, organic luminescent materials can be divided into blue, green, and red luminescent materials. The luminous efficiency of blue and green luminescent materials has basically reached the requirements of commercialization, but the red luminescent materials are far behind the former two.

Figure 1. The molecular structure of DCM dye.

Applications:

• Solar cells field: The development of solar cells is an important means to solve the shortage of energy shortage in today's society. Dye-sensitized solar cell is one of the most important types of solar cells, and dye sensitizer is an important component of dye-sensitized solar cells. Taking advantage of high luminous efficiency and stability, DCM dyes are well suitable to be used as dye sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells.

Figure 2. DCM dyes used as dye sensitizer for dye-sensitized solar cell.

• Sensors field: DCM dyes are widely used in sensors field. Based on the unique D-A structure, DCM dyes can be used as solvatochromic fluorophores to design polarity sensor that can show various stokes shifts in polar solvents due to the charge transfer between electron donating and electron accepting groups.

Figure 3. A polarity sensor based on DCM dyes.

• Fluorescent biological imaging field: Due to the excellent near infrared fluorescence characteristic, DCM dyes are less harmful to organisms and can avoid fluorescent background, which is suitable for living organism imaging. It is significant for tumor therapy and can realize in situ in vivo imaging monitoring and visual controlled release of tumor prodrugs.
• Others: In addition to the above application fields, DCM dyes also have important applications in other fields, such as fluorescent probes, lasers, electroluminescent devices, and cancer treatment.

Figure 4. DCM dye used in cancer treatment.

Classification:

According to the solubility, DCM dyes can be divided into lipid soluble DCM dyes and water-soluble DCM dyes.

• Lipid soluble DCM dyes: These compounds are soluble in organic solvents, such as chloroform, dichloromethane, ethyl acetate, and benzene.
• Water-soluble DCM dyes: These compounds are soluble in water, methanol, ethanol, acetone, and the other hydrophilic organic solvents.

References:

1. Joo, Young, Kim, et al. DCM-based organic dyes with electron donating groups for dye-sensitized solar cells.[J]. Journal of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, 2014, 14, 5203–5206.
2. Yumei Qin, Ping Zhang, Lincong Lai, et al. Luminous composite ultrathin films of the DCM dye assembled with layered double hydroxides and its fluorescence solvatochromism properties for polarity sensors[J]. Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 2015, 3, 5246-5252.
3. Dassie E, Arcidiacono D, Wasiak I, et al. Detection of fluorescent organic nanoparticles by confocal laser endomicroscopy in a rat model of Barrett's esophageal adenocarcinoma[J]. International Journal of Nanomedicine, 2015, 10, 6811–6823.