A strong fluorescence emission from poly(amido amine) (PAMAM) dendrimers with different terminal groups or a poly(propylene imine) (PPI) dendrimer was studied under different conditions by varying experimental parameters such as pH value, aging time, temperature, and concentration. The increase of fluorescence intensity was fast at low pH or high temperature but linear with respect to dendrimer concentration. It was reasonable that the formation of a fluorescence-emitting moiety had a close relation to protonated tertiary amine groups in PAMAM or PPI dendrimers. Furthermore, oxidation of the tertiary amines was confirmed to play an important role, which was evidently caused by oxygen in air. The results of fluorescence decay indicated that the deactivation of luminescence was raised with increasing temperature. Dendrimers emitted blue photoluminescence along fiber chain templates on a fluorescent microscope. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.