ULTRAFINE AND STABLE FLUORESCENT C-DOTS AND DOPED C-DOTS FOR BIOMEDICAL APPLICATIONS

Vijay Bhooshan Kumar ¹ Zeev Porat ^2,3 Aharon Gedanken ^1,4

¹Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan
²Division of Chemistry, Nuclear Research Center Negev, Beer-Sheva
³Institute of Applied Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva
⁴Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan

This research is focuses on one-step sonochemical synthesis of carbon dots (C-dots), which is carried out by sonication of polyethylene glycol (PEG-400) for 0.5-3 hour. It demonstrates how various sonication parameters such as sonication time, temperature and amplitude of sonication determine the size and the fluorescence of the C-dots. The produced C-dots are found in the PEG medium and have an average diameter of 2-10 nm, depending on the preparation conditions. The highest quantum yield of emission was ~16%. The synthesized C-dots was used for coating of polythene and finally it was used for bio-imaging applications. In addition to that we were synthesized metal (Ga, In, Sn) and non-metal (N, P, S) doped carbon dot for various applications (such as bio-imaging, antibacterial activity, gene delivery). We have observed the killing of bacteria is achieved using a very low concentration of Ga (ppb) doped within Ga@C-dots. The N@C-dots showed very high Quantum yield (ca. 44%), biocompatibility, and homogenous distribution of N@C-dots suspension was used to obtain a high contrast bio-imaging and life cell imaging.

Keywords:C-dots, metal doped C-dot, fluorescence, sonochemistry, quantum yield, bioimaging.