Amorphous carbon dots with high two-photon fluorescence for cellular imaging passivated by hyperbranched poly(amino amine)

Gangsheng Tong; Jingxia Wang; Ruibin Wang; Xinqiu Guo; Lin He; Feng Qiu; Ge Wang; Bangshang Zhu; Xinyuan Zhu; Tao Liu

doi:10.1039/C4TB01643B

Amorphous carbon dots with high two-photon fluorescence for cellular imaging passivated by hyperbranched poly(amino amine)†

Gangsheng Tong,‡*^a Jingxia Wang,‡^b Ruibin Wang,^a Xinqiu Guo,^a Lin He,^a Feng Qiu,^c Ge Wang,^a Bangshang Zhu,^a Xinyuan Zhu^c and Tao Liu*^b

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* Corresponding authors

^a Instrumental Analysis Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P. R. China
E-mail: tgs@sjtu.edu.cn

^b UNILAB Research Center of Chemical Reaction Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Chemical Reaction Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Shanghai 200237, P. R. China
E-mail: liutao@ecust.edu.cn

^c School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Shanghai 200240, P. R. China

Abstract

Amorphous carbon dots (C-Dots) with high two-photon fluorescence were prepared by using citric acid (CA) as the carbon source and hyperbranched poly(amino amine) (HPAA) as the surface passivation agent through a facile hydrothermal approach. The C-Dots with an average diameter about 10 nm were readily dispersed in water. They exhibited excellent fluorescence properties and excitation-dependent fluorescence behavior with the corresponding quantum yield (QY) of 17.1% in aqueous solution. Interestingly, the C-Dots emitted bright fluorescence even in the solid state with a QY of 16.3%, which is the highest value obtained for carbon-based nanomaterials. Using the MTT assay, the C-Dots showed low cytotoxicity against L929 normal cells. Furthermore, they were easily internalized by HeLa cells and presented high quality one- and two-photon cellular imaging, suggesting significant potential for application in biological imaging.

This article is part of the themed collection: 2015 Journal of Materials Chemistry B Hot Papers

Journal of Materials Chemistry B

Amorphous carbon dots with high two-photon fluorescence for cellular imaging passivated by hyperbranched poly(amino amine)†

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Amorphous carbon dots with high two-photon fluorescence for cellular imaging passivated by hyperbranched poly(amino amine)

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