Investigation on ligand exchange kinetics at CdSe/ZnS quantum dot surface utilizing pyrene as flourescent probe

Abstract

Direct ligand exchange kinetics between hydrophilic molecules and quantum dots(QDs) was investigated. Meanwhile, pyrene was exploited as probe to detect the efficiency of the ligand exchange reaction between octadecylamine-coated QDs(ODA-QDs) and different ligands[ligand 1: NH2G3-OH, ligand 2: G4.5-PEG5-FA5, ligand 3: (COOH)2G3-OH or ligand 4: G4.5-PEG1-FA1]. It was indicated that water-soluble QDs exhibit the same fluorescence and absorption spectra as ODA-QDs when they were dissolved in chloroform. Furthermore, the cellular experiments demonstrated that the folic acid(FA) targeting poly(amidoamine)(PAMAM) modified QD conjugates could be used as molecular targeting sensing systems for nanoparticle probes.