Emission Of CdTe Quantum Dots Research Articles

Dual-Emission Fluorescence Probe Based on CdTe Quantum Dots and Rhodamine B for Visual Detection of Mercury and Its Logic Gate Behavior.

It is urgent that a convenient and sensitive technique of detecting Hg2+ be developed because of its toxicity. Conventional fluorescence analysis works with a single fluorescence probe, and it often suffers from signal fluctuations which are influenced by external factors. In this research, a novel dual-emission probe assembled through utilizing CdTe quantum dots (QDs) and rhodamine B was designed to detect Hg2+ visually. Only the emission of CdTe QDs was quenched after adding Hg2+ in the dual-emission probe, which caused an intensity ratio change of the two different emission wavelengths and hence facilitated the visual detection of Hg2+. Compared to single emission QDs-based probe, a better linear relationship was shown between the variation of fluorescence intensity and the concentration of Hg2+, and the limit of detection (LOD) was found to be11.4 nM in the range of 0–2.6 μM. Interestingly, the intensity of the probe containing Hg2+ could be recovered in presence of glutathione (GSH) due to the stronger binding affinity of Hg2+ towards GSH than that towards CdTe QDs. Based on this phenomenon, an IMPLICATION logic gate using Hg2+/GSH as inputs and the fluorescence signal of QDs as an output was constructed.

Design of a ratiometric fluorescence nanoprobe to detect plasma levels of levodopa

Simply obtained by the oxidation of levodopa in alkaline media, polylevodopa nanoparticles are able to quench the fluorescence emission of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) via energy transfer mechanism. The extent of this quenching can be exploited for the quantification of levodopa, as an important therapeutic agent in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. However, to effectively improve the detection performance, in this study, we have designed a ratiometric probe by making use of variations in both the emission of QDs and the intrinsic emission of polylevodopa nanoparticles. The enhanced sensitivity, in particular, arose from the measurement of the ratio of fluorescence intensities at two different wavelengths, by which the resulting signal was totally analyte-dependent and free from environmental effects. The built-in self-calibration in this ratiometric approach led to a remarkable detection limit of 18.3 nmol L−1, without interruption from possible interferences. The proposed ratiometric nanoprobe not only proved to be highly selective, but also showed to be capable of successively detecting levodopa in complex biological fluids such as plasma, in which possible interferences are usually likely to affect the detection results.

Ultrasensitive detection of glibenclamide based on its enhancing effect on the fluorescence emission of CdTe quantum dots.

Glibenclamide (GB), as a sulfonylurea-based medication is commonly prescribed for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Due to its increasing consumption, there is a need to develop a simple, fast, and reliable detection method to follow its concentration in pharmaceutical and biological samples. Herein, a novel fluorometric method is developed for the sensitive measurement of GB. The method is based on the enhancing effect of GB on the fluorescence emission of mercaptopropionic acid (MPA) capped cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs). QDs were synthesized in aqueous solution and were characterized by fluorescence spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Fluorescence intensity of QDs was enhanced by adding GB in a very low concentration. The effect of operative factors such as pH, buffer, contact time and concentration of CdTe QDs were investigated and in the optimized condition, a linear increase was achieved for the emission intensity of QDs by increasing GB concentration in the range 49-345ng mL-1 , with a detection limit of 17.84ng mL-1 . The offered method has an acceptable precision (relative standard deviations were<2.8%) and was satisfactorily applied for the determination of GB in pharmaceutical products and human urine samples.

Using silicon-coated gold nanoparticles to enhance the fluorescence of CdTe quantum dot and improve the sensing ability of mercury (II)

The effect of silicon-coated gold nanoparticles with different gold core diameter and silica shell thickness on the fluorescence emission of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) was investigated. For gold nanoparticles with a diameter of 15nm, silica coating can only results in fluorescence recover of the bare gold nanoparticle-induced quenching of QDs. However, when the size of gold nanoparticle is increased to 60nm, fluorescence enhancement of the QDs could be obtained by silica coating. Because of the isolation of the silica shell-reduced quenching effect and local electric field effect, the fluorescence of QDs gets intense firstly and then decreases. The maximum fluorescence enhancement takes place as the silica shell has a thickness of 30nm. This enhanced fluorescence from silicon-coated gold nanoparticles is demonstrated for sensing of Hg2+. Under optimal conditions, the enhanced fluorescence intensity decreases linearly with the concentration of Hg2+ ranging from 0 to 200ng/mL. The limit of detection for Hg2+ is 1.25ng/mL. Interference test and real samples detection indicate that the influence from other metal ions could be neglected, and the Hg2+ could be specifically detected.

A fluorescence-quenching method for quantitative analysis of Ponceau 4R in beverage.

CdTe quantum dots was synthesized and used to quantitative analysis of Ponceau 4R in solution. With the excitation wavelength of 380nm the emission of CdTe quantum dots was quenched obviously by Ponceau 4R. In order to detect Ponceau 4R in mild condition the influences of fluorescence emission wavelength of CdTe quantum dots, pH value, temperature and reaction time were examined to establish the experimental condition. The linear response of the fluorescence intensity of CdTe quantum dots to Ponceau 4R allowed the quantitative analysis of Ponceau 4R in a range of 2.5-25μg/mL, and the limit of detection for Ponceau 4R was 0.025μg/mL. In addition, the responsive mechanism of this reaction system was investigated in detail by using the modified Stern-Volmer equation and thermodynamic calculation. Particularly, this method was used to quantitatively analyze the real sample, which indicated that this method could be more widely applied in similar samples.

Color-tunable emission of quantum dots via strong exciton-plasmon coupling in nanoporous gold structure at room temperature.

We experimentally demonstrate the color-tunable emission of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) enabled by strongly coupling the QDs to the nanoporous gold (NPG) structure at room temperature. By manipulating the concentrations of the QDs or the excitation flux of the laser, the coupling strength between the excitons in QDs and the plasmons in NPG is controlled, resulting in a large Rabi splitting at the magnitude of hundreds of meV and a photoluminescence (PL) tuning distinguishable by the naked eye. In addition, such large PL tuning is enabled not only for the strong coupling occurring on resonance but also off resonance. We believe that our study offers a new approach towards designing and fabricating novel opto-electronic devices where dynamical and large spectral tuning of QD PL emission is desired.

Fluorescence immunoassay of octachlorostyrene based on Fo¨rster resonance energy transfer between CdTe quantum dots and rhodamine B

Octachlorostyrene (OCS), a persistent and bioaccumulative toxicant (PBT), was assayed by fluorescence immunoassay based on the Fo¨rster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between CdTe quantum dots (QDs) and rhodamine B-labeled OCS (RB-OCS). Anti-OCS antibody produced in this lab is adsorbed on a microtiter plate. The RB-OCS competes with OCS for the highly specific immunoreaction with the anti-OCS antibodies adsorbed on the microtiter plate. The solution is then isolated and mixed with CdTe QDs as fluorescent donor which excite the emission of RB-OCS through FRET. As a result, the emission of CdTe QDs at 530nm decreases, whereas the emission of RB-OCS at 580nm increases. The ratio of fluorescence intensity at 580nm to that at 530nm is proportional to the RB-OCS concentration at a fixed CdTe QDs concentration, and consequently proportional to the OCS concentration. Selective and sensitive responses to OCS are achieved with a linear range of 8–80nM and a LOD of 3.8nM. Because OCS is quantified based on the fluorescence ratio, the sensor-to-sensor difference is greatly eliminated, making the proposed method a useful approach for in site scanning of OCS.

Enhanced chemiluminescence of CdTe quantum dots–H2O2 by horseradish peroxidase-mimicking DNAzyme

In this study, it was found that horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-mimicking DNAzyme could effectively enhance the CL emission of CdTe quantum dots (QDs)–H2O2 system, whereas HRP could not enhance the CL intensity. The CL enhancement mechanism was investigated, and the CL enhancement was supposed to originate from the catalysis of HRP-mimicking DNAzyme on the CL reaction between CdTe QDs and H2O2. Meantime, compared with CdTe QDs–H2O2 CL system, H2O2 concentration was markedly decreased in QDs–H2O2–HRP-mimicking DNAzyme CL system, improving the stability of QDs–H2O2 CL system. The QDs-based CL system was used to detect sensitively CdTe QDs and HRP-mimicking DNAzyme (as biologic labels). This work gives a path for enhancing CL efficiency of QDs system, and will be helpful to promote the step of QDs application in various fields such as bioassay and trace detection of analyte.

Ultrasensitive fluorescence detection of heparin based on quantum dots and a functional ruthenium polypyridyl complex

A new strategy for the detection of heparin is developed by utilizing quantum dots (QDs) and a functional ruthenium polypyridyl complex [Ru(phen)2(dppz-idzo)]2+ (phen=1,10-phenanthroline, dppz-idzo=dipyrido-[3,2-a:2',3'-c] phenazine-imidazolone). The emission of CdTe QDs is found to be quenched by Ru complex due to electron transfer. Upon addition of the polyanionic heparin, it could remove the quencher (Ru complex) from the surface of QDs owing to the electrostatic and/or hydrogen bonding interactions between heparin and Ru complex, which led to significant fluorescence recovery of CdTe QDs. The fluorescence intensity enhanced with the increase of heparin and a linear relationship was observed in the range of 21–77nM for heparin detection in buffer solution and the limit of detection (LOD) is 0.38nM. Moreover, the strategy was successfully applied to detect heparin as low as 0.68nM with a linear range of 35–98nM in fetal bovine serum samples. The selectivity results of the fluorescence assay revealed that our system displayed excellent fluorescence selectivity towards heparin over its analogues, such as chondroitin 4-sulfate (Chs) or hyaluronic acid (Hya). This fluorescence “switch on” assay for heparin is label-free, convenient, sensitive and selective, which can be used to detect heparin in biological systems even with the naked eyes.

Directional surface plasmon-coupled emission of CdTe quantum dots and its application in Hg(ii) sensing

We investigated the surface plasmon-coupled emission (SPCE) of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) and developed an SPCE-based quenchometric sensor for Hg(II) ion sensing. CdTe QDs directly synthesized in aqueous solution were attached to a 50 nm-thick Au film through layer-by-layer assembly. The directional emission of the CdTe QDs on the prism side from the surface plasmon coupling was completely p-polarized and observed at a fixed angle of 48.5°, which was consistent with theoretical calculations. An SPCE-based quenchometric sensor for Hg(II) ion sensing was established based on the quenching effect of Hg(II) ions on the fluorescence emission of CdTe QDs. As expected, the SPCE-based sensor enlarged the response range and was more sensitive than that based on free-space detection as a result of the high light-collection efficiency of SPCE. QDs with excellent properties combined with SPCE technology have great potential in detecting analytes at low concentration levels.

Modified spontaneous emission of CdTe quantum dots inside a photonic crystal.

The angular dependence of the spontaneous emission of CdTe quantum dots (QDs) inside a photonic crystal with a pseudogap is reported. The sensitive dependences of the radiative lifetime and the photoluminescence spectrum of CdTe QDs on the observation angle demonstrate the effect of the photonic bandgap on the spontaneous emission of the QDs.