Highly luminescent heteroatom codoped carbon dots for multitudinous applications

Abstract

Carbonaceous nanomaterials have shown great potential in the analytical and environmental domains due to their natural intriguing properties. Rich in quantum yield and reliable performances are necessary for carbon dots to be effectively used in the real-world applications. Carbon dots (CDs) exhibits high blue-emission with a quantum yield (ϕ) of 11% were synthesized through a single-step superficial pyrolysis technique. In this work, the derived carbon dots were employed as reducing and stabilizing agents in a unique one-step approach for the synthesis of AgNPs. The fluorescence of CDs was found to be quenched in the presence of dopamine with greater sensitivity, the minimum limit of detection was determined as 0.35 μM and possible mechanism could be the inner filter effect along with photoinduced electron transfer. In addition to this, the outstanding optical properties of CDs enable them to use as invisible ink in loading secret information and provide enhanced counterfeit protection. The solid-state quenching is successfully prevented when the CDs were dispersed in a polymer matrix for solid-state films preparation. The CDs-polymer composite is packed on top of a 365 nm UV LED chip, which emits blue light, to fabricate blue LED. Hence, we suggest that the synthesized CDs may serve as a future trend setter by as a single molecular probe for multifarious applications such as optoelectronics and forensic fields. Previously, we utilized these CDs for fingerprint detection and now apply them for new emerging applications.