Abstract
Silicon nanoparticles (SiNP) are currently of great interest, especially in biomedicine, because of their unique physicochemical properties combined with biodegradability. SiNPs can be obtained in various ways and can have either a non-porous solid (sol-) or porous (por-) structure. In this work, we carry out detailed optical monitoring of sol- and por-SiNP biodegradation using Raman and photoluminescence (PL) micro-spectroscopy. SiNPs were obtained by ultrasound grinding of sol- or por-silicon nanowires, created by silver-assisted chemical etching of crystalline Si with different doping levels. In this case, sol-SiNPs consist of nanocrystals 30 nm in size, while por-SiNPs consist of small 3 nm nanocrystals and 16 nm pores. Both SiNPs show low in vitro cytotoxicity towards MCF-7 and HEK293T cells up to 800 μg/mL. The appearance of the F-band (blue–yellow) PL, as well as a decrease in the intensity of the Raman signal, indicate the gradual dissolution of the sol-SiNPs during 20 days of incubation. At the same time, the rapid dissolution of por-SiNP within 24 h is identified by the quenching of their S-band (red) PL and the disappearance of the Raman signal. The obtained results are important for development of intelligent biodegradable drug delivery systems based on SiNPs.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilSilicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) are attracting the scientific attention due to their various emerging biomedical applications [1,2]
Porous and non-porous SiNWs were produced by silver-assisted chemical etching of high-doped (HD) and low-doped (LD) c-Si substrate, correspondingly
HD p-type c-Si contains of ~1020 free holes, which are necessary for the formation of pores inside the nanowires during the etching process
Summary
Silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) are attracting the scientific attention due to their various emerging biomedical applications [1,2]. Both porous (por-SiNPs) and solid (sol-SiNPs) nanoparticles are interesting, their properties can vary significantly. SiNPs are promising theranostics agents [1] because they can combine both therapeutical and diagnostic modalities. Potential therapeutical effects include drug delivery [3], photodynamic therapy [4,5], enhancement of ultrasonic [6] and radiofrequency irradiations [7,8], etc. Diagnostics is provided by SiNPs themselves as contrast agents for such methods as fluorescent diffuse tomography [3], magnetic resonance imaging [9], and ultrasonic imaging [10].
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