Recently, a new type of the second near-infrared window (NIR-II) fluorescent Ag₂S quantum dots, together with the in vivo imaging technology, independently developed by the team of Prof. Wang Qiangbin from Suzhou Institute of Nano-Tech and Nano-Bioncs (SINANO), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), won the first prize of the Jiangsu Provincial Science and Technology Award.

Prof. WANG Qiangbin’s group, for the first time, developed a series of NIR-II fluorescent Ag₂S quantum dots and established the world's leading in vivo NIR-II imaging platform for small animals. In comparison with the traditional in vivo fluorescence imaging technology, the penetration depth in tissue of NIR-II fluorescence can be increased from 0.3 cm to 1.5 cm, the spatial resolution can be increased from 1000 μm to 25 μm, and the time resolution can be increased from 1000 ms to 30 ms, which clearly show the great advantages of this newly developed technique.