Glow and Flash Adjustable Chemiluminescence with Tunable Waveband from the Same CuInS@ZnS Nanocrystal Luminophore.

All commercial chemiluminescence (CL) assays are conducted with either glow or flash CL of eye-visible waveband from chemical luminophores. Herein, glow and flash, as well as waveband adjustable CL from the same nanoparticle luminophore of thiol-capped CuInS@ZnS nanocrystals (CIS@ZnS-Thiol), are proposed via extensively exploiting the differed redox nature of CL triggering reagents. Taking thiosalicylic acid (TSA) as the model thiol-capping agent, the electron-injection-initiated charge transfer between CIS@ZnS-TSA and reductant can bring out efficient glow CL while the hole-injection-initiated charge transfer between CIS@ZnS-TSA and oxidant can give off obvious flash CL under optimum conditions. The maximum emission wavelength for CL of CIS@ZnS-TSA is adjustable from 730 nm to 823 nm via employing different triggering agents. Promisingly, the coexistent reductant of NH·HO and oxidant of HO can be employed as dual triggering reagents to trigger eye-visible and highly efficient flash CL from CIS@ZnS-TSA. The maximum emission intensity for flash CL of CIS@ZnS-TSA/NH-HO is 101-fold greater than the glow CL of CIS@ZnS-TSA/NH and 22-fold greater than the flash CL of CIS@ZnS-TSA/HO, respectively. The flash CL from CIS@ZnS-TSA/NH-HO is qualified for highly sensitive and selective CL immunoassay in a commercialized typical procedure with the entire operating process manually terminated within 35 min.