Quenching (fluorescence)

For other uses, see Quenching (disambiguation).

Quenching refers to any process which decreases the fluorescence intensity of a given substance. A variety of processes can result in quenching, such as excited state reactions, energy transfer, complex-formation and collisional quenching. As a consequence, quenching is often heavily dependent on pressure and temperature. Molecular oxygen and the iodide ion are common chemical quenchers. Quenching poses a problem for non-instant spectroscopic methods, such as laser-induced fluorescence.

Quenching is made use of in optode sensors; for instance the quenching effect of oxygen on certain rubidium complexes allows the measurement of oxygen saturation in solution. Quenching and dequenching upon interaction with a specific molecular biological target is the basis for activatable optical contrast agents for molecular imaging.^[1]

• Dark quencher, for use in molecular biology.
• Fluorescence resonance energy transfer, a phenomenon on which some quenching techniques rely

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