A near-infrared I emissive dye: toward the application of saturable absorber and multiphoton fluorescence microscopy in the deep-tissue imaging window.

A boron-dipyrromethene (BODIPY) dye emitting in the near-infrared (NIR) I region (723 nm) exhibits strong saturable absorption at 680 nm. Its multiphoton absorption spectra in the NIR II and III regions are determined. Three-photon fluorescence imaging of the BODIPY-labeled cells excited at 1665 nm is also demonstrated.