Xiao Lian, Sun Handong
Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, 637371, Singapore.
Nanoscale Horiz. 2018 Nov 1;3(6):565-597. doi: 10.1039/c8nh00106e. Epub 2018 Jul 30.
In the most recent decade, carbon dots have drawn intensive attention and triggered substantial investigation. Carbon dots manifest superior merits, including excellent biocompatibility both in vitro and in vivo, resistance to photobleaching, easy surface functionalization and bio-conjugation, outstanding colloidal stability, eco-friendly synthesis, and low cost. All of these endow them with the great potential to replace conventional unsatisfactory fluorescent heavy metal-containing semiconductor quantum dots or organic dyes. Even though the understanding of their photoluminescence mechanism is still controversial, carbon dots have already exhibited many versatile applications. In this article, we summarize and review the recent progress achieved in the field of carbon dots, and provide a comprehensive summary and discussion on their synthesis methods and emission mechanisms. We also present the applications of carbon dots in bioimaging, drug delivery, microfluidics, light emitting diode (LED), sensing, logic gates, and chiral photonics, etc. Some unaddressed issues, challenges, and future prospects of carbon dots are also discussed. We envision that carbon dots will eventually have great commercial utilization and will become a strong competitor to some currently used fluorescent materials. It is our hope that this review will provide insights into both the fundamental research and practical applications of carbon dots.
在最近十年中，碳点引起了广泛关注并引发了大量研究。碳点具有卓越的优点，包括在体外和体内都具有出色的生物相容性、抗光漂白性、易于表面功能化和生物共轭、出色的胶体稳定性、环保合成以及低成本。所有这些特性赋予它们巨大的潜力，可取代传统的、不尽人意的含荧光重金属的半导体量子点或有机染料。尽管对其光致发光机制的理解仍存在争议，但碳点已经展现出许多多功能应用。在本文中，我们总结并回顾了碳点领域最近取得的进展，并对其合成方法和发射机制进行了全面总结和讨论。我们还介绍了碳点在生物成像、药物递送、微流控、发光二极管（LED）、传感、逻辑门和手性光子学等方面的应用。同时也讨论了碳点一些尚未解决的问题、挑战和未来前景。我们设想碳点最终将具有巨大的商业用途，并将成为一些当前使用的荧光材料的有力竞争对手。我们希望这篇综述能为碳点的基础研究和实际应用提供见解。
