TY - JOUR

T1 - Spontaneous formation of carbon dots helps to distinguish molecular fluorophores species

AU - Gómez, I. Jénnifer

AU - Vazquez Sulleiro, Manuel

AU - Pizúrová, Naděžda

AU - Bednařík, Antonin

AU - Lepcio, Petr

AU - Holec, David

AU - Preisler, Jan

AU - Zajickkova, Lenka

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

PY - 2023/2/1

Y1 - 2023/2/1

N2 - Carbon dots (CDs) display photophysical features that appear similar, if not identical, despite the variety of synthesis protocols used to obtain them. The unique design of CDs toward the desired properties requires an exhaustive understanding of the structure itself. This work offers a fundamental insight into the structure and formation of the carbon dots that allows distinguishing the existence of molecular fluorophore species. Remarkably, density functional theory calculations of the elucidated structures support the spontaneous formation of a compact network of molecular species. In addition, as a proof-of-principle, our work comprehensively studies the photoluminescence properties (i.e., concentration, pH and solvent dependencies), which pave the way for developing CD-based logic gate fluorescent sensors.

AB - Carbon dots (CDs) display photophysical features that appear similar, if not identical, despite the variety of synthesis protocols used to obtain them. The unique design of CDs toward the desired properties requires an exhaustive understanding of the structure itself. This work offers a fundamental insight into the structure and formation of the carbon dots that allows distinguishing the existence of molecular fluorophore species. Remarkably, density functional theory calculations of the elucidated structures support the spontaneous formation of a compact network of molecular species. In addition, as a proof-of-principle, our work comprehensively studies the photoluminescence properties (i.e., concentration, pH and solvent dependencies), which pave the way for developing CD-based logic gate fluorescent sensors.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141489768&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.155536

DO - 10.1016/j.apsusc.2022.155536

M3 - Article

VL - 610.2023

JO - Applied surface science

JF - Applied surface science

SN - 0169-4332

IS - 1 February

M1 - 155536

ER -