Nano logic gates based on gold nanoparticles- carbon dots hybrid and its FLIM imaging

Abstract

In today’s research area it is extremely important to assemble nanomaterials into electric devices at the nanoscale level due to the rapid expansion of nanotechnology in various fields. Designing a nanohybrid composed of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) and red-emitting carbon dots (CDs) can be used to develop a fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) based logic gate that can respond to multiple input parameters. The AuNPs are conjugated to CDs surfaces through a strong covalent linkage between them. These fluorescence lifetimes-based logic gates could be the new way to overcome the limitation of fluorescence intensity-based logic gates. The Au-CDs nanohybrid shows significant fluorescence quenching of pristine CDs after conjugation of gold nanoparticles. This quenched fluorescence can be recovered back by using a proper recovering agent giving us a reversible logic output. This nanohybrid can be used to construct complex logic functions as the fluorescence logic output is independent of concentration and excitation source.