Toward 95.5% Efficient Red Emissive Carbon Dots: Oxidation State Enhancing Radiative Electron-Transition of Indole Fluorophore
Red fluorescence carbon dots (CDs) are promising for diverse applications and have attracted tremendous research interest. However, it is still challenging to achieve red fluorescence CDs with high fluorescence quantum yields (QYs > 50%). Herein, three kinds of red fluorescence CDs with QYs of 53.48, 85.21, and 59.18% are prepared. Benefiting from the oxidation induced by atmospheric-pressure O<sub>2</sub> plasma processing, 95.5% efficient red fluorescence emission is achieved. It is revealed that the indole based fluorophores act as the red-emitting photoluminescence center. The synergistic effect between the C-O-C structure and indole based fluorophores plays a key role in promoting the efficiency of radiative electron transition and controlling the red fluorescence QYs. Additionally, the CDs show promising prospects for <i>in vivo</i> bioimaging and low <i>in vivo</i> toxicity. This work shows a new way for achieving high-efficiency red fluorescence CDs, and it may guide the development of high-performance CDs for diverse applications.
Authors
- Yupengxue Ma
- Junlan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5351-6241)
- Yuanyuan Qiu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8426-3796)
- Feng‐Qing Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3473-5991)
- Liangwei Zeng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9603-1845)
- Fangfang Xia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6567-0564)
- Shaofeng Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4614-0637)
- Xiaoxia Zhong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5371-7932)
- Ruoyu Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0422-6408)
- Qing Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3433-5645)
Institutions
- Donghua University (CN)
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN)
- Renji Hospital (CN)
- Ministry of Education (TH)
- Guangzhou Maritime College (CN)
- National Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology (CN)
- Institute of Virology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2024-10-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c04367
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Carbon and Quantum Dots Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.12
Funders
- Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai
- Queensland University of Technology
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Shanghai Jiao Tong University
- Australian Research Council
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities