Akari Aviya S, Narciso Maria R, Fagbohun Emmanuel O, Ortiz Pedro D, Botelho Roberto J, Impellizzeri Stefania
Department of Chemistry and Biology, Toronto Metropolitan University, 350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada.
Nanoscale. 2025 May 29;17(21):13251-13257. doi: 10.1039/d5nr00123d.
As part of our efforts to develop nanomaterials with tunable optical properties, we devised a synthetic protocol to photoactivate the luminescence of hydrophilic carbon dots by 'caging' the nanostructures with photocleavable 2-nitrobenzyl quenchers. Photoremovable 2-nitrobenzyl groups can be attached covalently to the surface of the carbon dots amide-bond formation. We show that 2-nitrobenzyls efficiently quench the emission intensity of the resulting nanoconstructs and that the luminescence can be activated upon ultraviolet illumination in solution. In addition, the carbon dots can be internalized by living cells and used as bioimaging agents.
作为我们开发具有可调光学性质的纳米材料的努力的一部分，我们设计了一种合成方案，通过用可光裂解的2-硝基苄基猝灭剂“笼蔽”纳米结构来光激活亲水性碳点的发光。可光去除的2-硝基苄基可以通过酰胺键形成共价连接到碳点表面。我们表明，2-硝基苄基有效地猝灭了所得纳米结构的发射强度，并且在溶液中紫外光照下发光可以被激活。此外，碳点可以被活细胞内化并用作生物成像剂。
