Nanoscale Fluorescence Thermometry: Probes, Recent Advances and Emerging Directions

TL;DR

This review discusses recent progress in fluorescence-based nanoscale thermometry, highlighting mechanisms, materials, applications, challenges, and future directions for precise temperature measurement at nanoscales.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of fluorescence nanothermometry, including recent advances, critical challenges, and emerging strategies for real-time, accurate nanoscale temperature sensing.

Findings

Fluorescence observables enable temperature inference at nanoscales.

Recent advances have improved spatial resolution and real-time capabilities.

Emerging strategies aim to enhance robustness and scalability.

Abstract

The transition of materials and devices to nanometer, atomic, and quantum scales makes thermal characterization increasingly challenging, driving the need for advanced nanoscale thermometry. Fluorescence nanothermometry has emerged as a powerful approach, enabling remote, spatially resolved temperature measurements with sub-micrometer-to-nanometer precision across applications in nanoelectronics, microfluidics, and biological systems. In these systems, temperature is inferred from variations in fluorescence observables, including spectral position, intensity, linewidth, and excited-state dynamics. This review provides a comprehensive and critical overview of fluorescence nanothermometry, covering fundamental mechanisms, material platforms, recent advances, and emerging applications. It further presents a critical evaluation of key challenges and discusses emerging strategies and future research directions toward achieving robust, real-time thermometry. It is anticipated that this review will stimulate further advances in material platforms and system design, accelerating the development of accurate, scalable, and application-ready nanoscale thermometers.