National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Optical-Conversion Materials and Technology, School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P.R. China.
School of Stomotology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, P.R. China.
ACS Appl Bio Mater. 2021 Jul 19;4(7):5786-5796. doi: 10.1021/acsabm.1c00528. Epub 2021 Jul 8.
Fluorescent sensing of temperature in nanoscale regions has many advantages and applications in the biological field. Herein, blue emitting carbon dots (CDs) are designed and successfully developed using a one step hydrothermal method. As synthesized CDs exhibit temperature dependent photoluminescent (PL) intensity and PL decay lifetime over the physiological temperature ranging from room temperature (RT) to 70 °C. The PL intensity and PL decay lifetime of the obtained CDs correlate linearly to temperature (RT-70 °C) with correlation coefficient of 0.997 and 0.996, respectively. Additionally, dual mode thermal sensing (PL intensity/lifetime) make these CDs a promising optical nanothermometer over alternative semiconductors quantum dots and CD-based quantum dots. Moreover, the resultant aqueous CDs demonstrate excitation-independent blue emission, and the PL quantum yield (QY) is reached at 44.5%. The obtained CDs illustrate stable performance to high ionic environments and photobleaching even after keeping them for 2 h under continues UV irradiation. Furthermore, blue emitting CDs have low cytotoxicity for T-ca. cells and illuminate deep blue fluorescence under the excitation of 406 nm. As a result, high thermal sensitivity of these fluorescent CDs has potential to detect temperature in living cells in the range of 25-40 °C.
纳米区域温度的荧光传感在生物领域具有许多优势和应用。在此，我们采用一步水热法设计并成功制备了发蓝光的碳点（CDs）。所合成的 CDs 在生理温度范围内（室温至 70°C）表现出与温度相关的光致发光（PL）强度和 PL 衰减寿命。获得的 CDs 的 PL 强度和 PL 衰减寿命与温度（RT-70°C）呈线性相关，相关系数分别为 0.997 和 0.996。此外，双模式热传感（PL 强度/寿命）使得这些 CDs 成为替代半导体量子点和基于 CD 的量子点的有前途的光学纳米温度计。此外，所得的水性 CDs 表现出激发独立的蓝色发射，PL 量子产率（QY）达到 44.5%。获得的 CDs 即使在连续的 UV 照射下保持 2 小时，也表现出对高离子环境和光漂白的稳定性能。此外，发蓝光的 CDs 对 T-ca 细胞具有低细胞毒性，在 406nm 激发下发出深蓝色荧光。因此，这些荧光 CDs 的高温度敏感性有可能在 25-40°C 的范围内检测活细胞中的温度。
