Photoluminescence is the phenomenon of spontaneous emission of light after a substance has absorbed a photon and it includes fluorescence, i.e. emission from excited singlet state, and phosphorescence, i.e. emission from excited triplet state. The intensity of luminescence is influenced by temperature; therefore, fluorophores can also be used as thermosensors. The most well-known are organic fluorophores, the emission of these is also affected by temperature, however the concentration of the fluorophore is often not known or the concentration changes with time because of e.g., photobleaching. Besides organic fluorophores, lanthanide complexes, such as europium and terbium complexes, also emit light upon excitation. The emission spectra of europium and terbium complexes have many relatively sharp peaks with different sensitivity of emission intensity to temperature. Therefore, the ratio of emission intensity of two peaks is dependent solely on temperature, making them better candidates for development of thermosensors than organic fluorophores. In this master's thesis, we first prepared the appropriate ligands, which were then bound to trivalent europium and terbium ions. We prepared already known 1,3-diketo type of ligands, as well as ligands with imine and sulfonamide functional groups. In the case of terbium complexes, ligands with less π electrons exhibited better fluorescence, while in the case of europium complexes those with more π electrons were better. We were successful in the synthesis, since as many as 11 of the 16 complexes exhibited strong emission upon excitation with UV lamp (366 nm). Terbium complexes emit green light and europium complexes emit red. We tried to prepare single crystals for the selected complexes, which were then analyzed by X-ray diffraction in order to accurately characterize their structure. Finally, a silyl reagent was attached to the selected terbium complex for coating of silica surfaces. In addition, we have prepared a probe based on a europium complex for labeling carbon nanotubes and a highly fluorinated europium complex, which is miscible with perfluorinated solvents and will be useful for measuring their temperature.
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