Anomalous enhancement of fluorescence of carbon dots through lanthanum doping and potential application in intracellular imaging of ferric ion

作者：Yang, Shenghong; Sun, Xiaohan; Wang, Zhaoyan; Wang, Xiayan^*; Guo, Guangsheng; Pu, Qiaosheng^*

来源：Nano Research, 2018, 11(3): 1369-1378.

DOI：10.1007/s12274-017-1751-8

• rear earth doping
• carbon dots
• fluorescence tuning
• ferric ion
• cell imaging

An anomalous enhancement of fluorescence of carbon dots (CDs) was observed via lanthanum (La) doping. La-doped CDs (La-CDs) were prepared through microwave pyrolysis within 4 min. With La3+ doping, the emission band shifted from blue to green although La3+ is non-fluorescent. The quantum yield and fluorescence lifetime improved by about 20% and 35%, respectively. All experiment results indicate that La3+ doping is an effective way to tune fluorescence and improve the performance of CDs. Another unique attribute of La-CDs is high sensitivity to Fe3+. The La-CD-based fluorescence probe was established and used for sensitive and selective detection of Fe3+ with a limit of detection of 91 nmol/L. The proposed fluorescence probe also was successfully employed to visualize intracellular Fe3+ in live HeLa cells through cell imaging. It was also shown that yttrium exhibited the same fluorescence enhancement effect as La. The results may provide a new route for preparing CDs with special properties.

• 出版日期2018-3
• 单位北京工业大学; 功能有机分子化学国家重点实验室; 兰州大学