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Abstract
Lanthanide complexes have been widely used in bioassay for over forty years, but their usefulness in optical imaging is only now beginning to be appreciated fully. In this chapter, we explore the fundamental spectroscopic properties of lanthanide ions that make them ideal as components in probes for optical imaging: their large pseudo Stokes’ shift and long luminescence lifetimes facilitate the elimination of background signals, while the nature of the energy transfer pathways involved in sensitizing lanthanide emission makes all of them amenable to perturbation by their surroundings. We explore the use of lanthanide tags and labels in cellular imaging,
