S–CdIn2S4: A novel near-infrared emitter triggered by low potential for constructing a dual-mode immunosensing platform

CdIn2S4 is an interesting ternary metal sulfide whose narrow band gap and tunable optical properties offer new opportunities for the development of novel ECL emitters. Here, we use a simple hydrothermal synthesis to obtain hollow spindle CdIn2S4 (S–CIS), which exhibits strong near-infrared electrochemiluminescence (ECL) emission with K2S2O8 as a coreactant at a low excitation potential (−1.3 V), which is encouraging. The lower excitation potential of S–CIS is probably due to the low band gap energy, which makes the excitation potential positively shift. This lower excitation potential reduces the side-reactions caused by high voltages, effectively avoiding irreversible damage to biomolecules, and protecting the biological activity of antigens and antibodides. In this work, new features of S–CIS in ECL studies are also presented, demonstrating that the ECL emission mechanism of S–CIS is generated by surface state transitions and that S–CIS exhibits excellent near-infrared (NIR) characteristics. Importantly, we introduced S–CIS into electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and ECL to the construct a dual-mode sensing platform to achieve AFP detection. The two models with intrinsic reference calibration and high accuracy showed outstanding analytical performance in AFP detection. The detection limits were 0.862 pg mL−1 and 16.8 fg mL−1, respectively. This study demonstrates the key role and great application potential of S–CIS as a novel NIR emitter with easy preparation, low cost and great performance in the development of a simple, efficient and ultrasensitive dual-mode response sensing platform for early clinical use.