FRET from CdSe/ZnS Core-Shell Quantum Dots to Fluorescein 27 Dye

Math A Shivkumar,Gopal M Advi Rao,Mohammad Hussain K Rabinal,Sanjeev R Inamdar,Basavaraj G Mulimani,Laxmi S Inamdar

doi:10.4236/ojpc.2013.31006

Math A Shivkumar, Gopal M Advi Rao + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpc.2013.31006

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Abstract

Semiconductor QDs have emerged as a novel class of fluorophore with unique photoluminescence properties, in particular, CdSe/ZnS core-shell QDs have been successfully used as biocompatible fluorescence resonance energy transfer donors. Here we report FRET between CdSe/ZnS core-shell QDs (donor) and organic dye fluorescein 27 (F27) (acceptor). The results demonstrate the occurrence of efficient energy transfer in the system and the FRET efficiency is not only influenced by the spectral overlap between the QD donor emission and acceptor absorption, it might depend on QDs surface effect also. Efforts are made to correlate quantitatively spectral dependence of FRET rate with acceptor absorption spectrum, Forster distance, transfer efficiency (E) obtained employing steady-state & time-resolved technique.

Highlights

Contemporary research interest in semiconductor nano particles or quantum dots (QDs), the tiny light emitting particles on the nanometer scale, focuses on their application as biological reporters because of their size tunable properties and due to the fact that they have virtually the same dimension as biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins [1,2]
The results demonstrate the occurrence of efficient energy transfer in the system and the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency is influenced by the spectral overlap between the QD donor emission and acceptor absorption, it might depend on QDs surface effect
With a view to develop FRET chemical and biosensors based on semiconductor QDs, two sets of QDs of sizes 480 (QD1) and 510 nm (QD2) are chosen as donors in the present study with Fluorescein 27 dye as acceptor molecule

Summary

Introduction

Contemporary research interest in semiconductor nano particles or quantum dots (QDs), the tiny light emitting particles on the nanometer scale, focuses on their application as biological reporters because of their size tunable properties and due to the fact that they have virtually the same dimension as biological macromolecules such as nucleic acids and proteins [1,2]. Quantum dots have many unique properties and exhibit interesting phenomena such as size dependent emission wavelength, narrow emission peak, broad excitation range, high photochemical stability and improved photoluminescence quantum yield upon passivating the surface traps with higher band gap semi conductors such as ZnS [5,6,7,8,9,10] When these particles are photoexcited, electron-hole pairs are generated and upon their recombination fluorescence light is emitted due to the small size quantum effect playing an important role.

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