Red-to-Blue/Cyan/Green Upconverting Microcapsules for Aqueous- and Dry-Phase Color Tuning and Magnetic Sorting

Microcapsules that achieve multicolor triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA)-based upconversion (UC) in both aqueous and dry phases without deoxygenation are presented for the first time. Platinum(II) tetraphenyltetrabenzoporphyrin (PtTPBP) was used as a sensitizer and perylene, 9,10-bis(phenylethynyl)anthracene (BPEA), and a boron dipyrromethene derivative (BD-2) were employed as acceptors for red to blue, cyan, and green UC, respectively. Additional color tuning was introduced into microcapsules by embedding rose bengal onto the microcapsule shell, resulting in UC-mediated excitation of a distal fluorophore through a trivial process. Microcapsules were further modified to host superparamagnetic nanoparticles for magnetic-induced collection, which permitted sorting and color separation potentially instrumental for various photonics-based applications.