Luminescent Carbazole-Based EuIII and YbIII Complexes with a High Two-Photon Absorption Cross-Section Enable Viscosity Sensing in the Visible and Near IR with One- and Two-Photon Excitation

The newly synthesized EuIII and YbIII complexes with the new carbazole-based ligands CPAD2– and CPAP4– display the characteristic long-lived metal-centered emission upon one- and two-photon excitation. The EuIII complexes show the expected narrow emission bands in the red region, with emission lifetimes between 0.382 and 1.464 ms and quantum yields between 2.7% and 35.8%, while the YbIII complexes show the expected emission in the NIR region, with emission lifetimes between 0.52 and 37.86 μs and quantum yields between 0.028% and 1.12%. Two-photon absorption cross sections (σ2PA) as high as 857 GM were measured for the two ligands. The complexes showed a strong dependence of the one- and two-photon sensitized emission intensity on solvent viscosity in the range of 0.5–200 cP in the visible and NIR region.