Facile one-step sonochemical synthesis of ultrafine and stable fluorescent C-dots

Vijay Bhooshan Kumar; Ze'ev Porat; Aharon Gedanken

doi:10.1016/j.ultsonch.2015.08.005

Facile one-step sonochemical synthesis of ultrafine and stable fluorescent C-dots

Ultrason Sonochem. 2016 Jan:28:367-375. doi: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2015.08.005. Epub 2015 Aug 10.

Authors

Vijay Bhooshan Kumar¹, Ze'ev Porat², Aharon Gedanken³

Affiliations

¹ Bar-Ilan Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel.
² Division of Chemistry, Nuclear Research Center-Negev, Be'er Sheva 84190, Israel; Institute of Applied Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er Sheva 84105, Israel.
³ Bar-Ilan Institute for Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel; National Cheng Kung University, Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Tainan 70101, Taiwan. Electronic address: gedanken@mail.biu.ac.il.

PMID: 26384920
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultsonch.2015.08.005

Abstract

This work describes a one-step synthesis of carbon dots (C-dots), which is carried out by sonication of polyethylene glycol (PEG-400) for 0.5-3h. The effect of the various experimental parameters, such as sonication time, amplitude and temperature on the size and the fluorescence of the C-dots was studied. It was found that the average diameter of the C-dots is between 2 and 9 nm, depending on the preparation conditions. The highest quantum yield of emission was ∼ 16%. These high fluorescence properties of the C-dots could be used for bioimaging and for solar cell applications.

Keywords: C-dots; Fluorescence; PEG-400; Quantum yield; Sonochemistry.