The Effect of Tensile Alterations on Fluorescence Properties in Polymer Embedded with Carbon Dots

Carbon dots (CDots) are a fluorescent carbon nanomaterial that possess great importance due to their distinctive properties, such as excitation-dependent emission, low cytotoxicity, high photo stability, low cost and excellent biocompatibility. These advantages inspired many studies on CDots, which already presented in several applications. The Aggregation-Caused Quenching (ACQ) effect of CDots is the main obstacle preventing their integration in solid state applications. Here, for the first time, we present the fluorescence enhancement of a film composed from CDots/polymer composite by introducing mechanical alteration in a form of stretching.

The solid-state non covalent composite film based on CDots and polyvinyl butyral (PVB) exhibit increase in the fluorescent intensity up to 8 times and causing a blue shift of the emission peak, after performing stretching stimulations due to disaggregation effect of CDots in the polymer matrix, making it an ideal for sensing tensile deformation by changes in strain.

Furthermore, we successfully produced fluorescent enhanced film emitting white light, when excited in the blue region which provides novel insights into the potential applications of CDots films

Materials that not only change their fluorescence intensity in response to a mechanical deformation but also can fabricate in non-complex steps that provides eco-friendly alternatives should be of great importance for practical applications.