ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development of near-infrared (NIR) luminescent Si Nano crystals for targeting the applications in biomedical fields among large number of researches on colloidal Si Nano crystals made in the past decade. It shows the attenuation coefficient of bloods, skin, and fatty tissues of the human body as a function of light wavelength. There is an optimum range where the attenuation coefficient is small, the so-called biological window spanning from 700 to 1350 nm. Therefore, biocompatible near-IR luminescent Si Nano crystals possess an advantage as Nano probes in deep-tissue imaging and in bio-sensing devices used in biological substances. The chapter explains that the most of the recent important researches on the synthesis process, the luminescence properties, and the bio-imaging applications are summarized. The excellent results suggest that near-IR luminescent Si Nano crystals are now ready for a wide range of application researches, especially in the biomedical fields.
