Mapping photogenerated radicals in thin polymer films: fluorescence imaging using a prefluorescent radical probe.

Prefluorescent radical probes, in which fluorescence is activated by radical trapping, and photoinitiators were used to detect radical generation in polymer films using fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy. Prefluorescent radical probes are the foundation of a fluorescence imaging system for polymer films, that may serve both as a mechanistic tool in the study of photoinitiated radical processes in polymer films and in the preparation of functional fluorescent images.