A high sensitive and selective fluorescent probe for dopamine detection based on water soluble AgInS2 quantum dots

Abstract

Herein, a water soluble AgInS2 quantum dots (AIS QDs) with high sensitive and selective for dopamine (DA) were prepared through a clean and facile reflux method with the mercapto propionic acid (MPA) and polyethyleneimine (PEI) used as the co-modifiers. The fluorescence quench of as-fabricated AIS QDs displayed an excellent selectivity and sensitivity to the DA and they showed a good linear relationship with the low detection limit (2.84 nm) in the range of 0.5–300 μmol/L. The mechanism of fluorescence quench may attributed to the photoinduced electrons migrated from AIS QDs to dopamine quinone, which originated from the oxidization of DA by ambient O2. Our work shows a promising prospect of designing and preparing AIS QDs used as the fluorescence sensors for DA detection.