Hydrothermal synthesis of N-doped carbon quantum dots and their application in ion-detection and cell-imaging

Abstract Carbon quantum dots (CQDs), owing to their characteristic luminescent properties, have become a new favorite in the field of luminescence. They have been widely used in light emitting diode, ion detection, cell-imaging, ect. Herein a facile synthesis method of nitrogen-doped carbon quantum dots (N-CQDs) has been developed via a one-step hydrothermal of glucose and m-phenylenediamine. The chemical composition, surface functional groups, and crystal structure of so prepared N-CQDs were systematically characterized. The characterizations indicate that nitrogen has been chemically doped in the CQDs and the N-CQDs crystallize in a graphene structure. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements show that the N-CQDs emit strong blue emission under the irradiation of ultraviolet. The emission is excitation-dependent, is resistant to photo bleaching and high ionic strength, and slightly decreases with the increase of temperature. The quantum yield of them is about 17.5%. The PL intensity of N-CQDs quenches linearly with the increase of the concentrations of Fe3+(0.5–1.0 mM) and CrO42−(0.3–0.6 mM), which are a kind of excellent fluorescent probe for the detection of Fe3+ and CrO42−. The quenching mechanism of Fe3+ and CrO42−is verified to be a static quenching mechanism based on inner filter effect. The N-CQDs are also found to be a good cell-imaging reagent of Hela cells.