(Invited) Synthetic Strategies to Lower the Barrier for Making High Quality Quantum Dot Probes

Abstract

Quantum dot (QD)-based bioimaging requires QDs with exceptional optical quality and well-controlled surface properties. Although extensive research has been carried out to produce high-quality nanocrystals and to design biocompatible ligands, significant expertise is required to synthesize the best quality QDs and ligands reported. Commercially available QDs often fail to meet the required quality and suffer from irreproducibility in their performance. These restrictions have limited the wide adoption of QDs for biomedical imaging in non-expert groups. My group strives to lower the barrier to preparing high-quality QD probes in a wide range of wavelengths. In this talk, I will discuss the synthetic strategies that we have developed to systematically grow high-quality nanocrystals of various sizes and materials with minimal human intervention and simplify the synthesis of polyimidazole ligands without compromising their quality. By lowering the synthetic barrier to high-quality QDs, we envision unleashing the full potential of QDs in various fields.