Phosphorescent Pt(ii) complexes spatially arrayed in micellar polymeric nanoparticles providing dual readout for multimodal imaging.

In this paper we report phosphorescent Pt(ii) complexes as monomers which can be directly incorporated into growing polymers. Due to the amphiphilic nature of the polymers they can self-assemble into micellar nanoparticles, where the phosphorescent Pt(ii) complexes can arrange selectively in the core or shell of the nanoparticles. The complexes enable dual orthogonal imaging, made possible by the heavy metal, which enhances the contrast for these micelles in electron microscopy and facilitates spin-orbit coupling that turns on microsecond lifetime luminescence.