Abstract
A bimacrocyclic luminescent terbium(III) sensor is reported for the selective ‘turn-off’ detection of Cu2+ ions in aqueous solutions. The current sensor differentiates from previous sensors in that it offers the use of 1) time-gated luminescence detection to remove background signal, 2) a longer excitation wavelength of up to 350 nm for increased biocompatibility, and 3) a practically irreversible detection as a form of probing Cu2+ ions with an extremely low limit of detection of about 1.7 nM.