ARC Centre of Excellence for Nanoscale BioPhotonics, School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, 3001, Australia.
Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 23;7(1):9252. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-09457-x.
Quantifying the variation in emission properties of fluorescent nanodiamonds is important for developing their wide-ranging applicability. Directed self-assembly techniques show promise for positioning nanodiamonds precisely enabling such quantification. Here we show an approach for depositing nanodiamonds in pre-determined arrays which are used to gather statistical information about fluorescent lifetimes. The arrays were created via a layer of photoresist patterned with grids of apertures using electron beam lithography and then drop-cast with nanodiamonds. Electron microscopy revealed a 90% average deposition yield across 3,376 populated array sites, with an average of 20 nanodiamonds per site. Confocal microscopy, optimised for nitrogen vacancy fluorescence collection, revealed a broad distribution of fluorescent lifetimes in agreement with literature. This method for statistically quantifying fluorescent nanoparticles provides a step towards fabrication of hybrid photonic devices for applications from quantum cryptography to sensing.
量化荧光纳米金刚石的发射特性变化对于开发其广泛的适用性非常重要。定向自组装技术有望实现纳米金刚石的精确定位，从而实现这种量化。在这里，我们展示了一种在预定阵列中沉积纳米金刚石的方法，该方法用于收集关于荧光寿命的统计信息。该阵列是通过使用电子束光刻在光刻胶层上形成具有孔径网格的图案而创建的，然后用纳米金刚石滴铸而成。电子显微镜显示，在 3376 个填充的阵列位置中，平均沉积产率为 90%，每个位置平均有 20 个纳米金刚石。针对氮空位荧光收集进行了优化的共焦显微镜显示，荧光寿命呈宽分布，与文献一致。这种统计荧光纳米颗粒的方法为制造用于从量子密码学到传感等应用的混合光子器件迈出了一步。
