posted on 2017-09-22, 09:36authored byMarcello La Rosa, Tommaso Avellini, Christophe Lincheneau, Serena Silvi, Iain Wright, Edwin C. Constable, Alberto Credi
We describe an operationally advantageous general methodology to efficiently activate lipoic acid-based compounds - a
family of popular surface ligands for semiconductor nanocrystals - by
the use of a borohydride exchange resin, and the use of the activated species to replace the native surface ligands of quantum dots. The procedure enables the phase transfer of the nanocrystals between
polar and aqueous media and, if unsubstituted lipoic acid is used, a
facile adjustment of their solubility in a wide range of solvents with varying polarity (from hexane to water). We show that the protocol is applicable to different types of nanocrystals and a variety of lipoic acid-based ligands, and that the resulting quantum dots maintain their optical properties - in particular, an intense luminescence - and long
term colloidal stability.
Funding
Financial support from the EU (FP7-NMP project Hysens, No. 263091), the Italian Ministry for Education, University and
Research (PRIN 2010CX2TLM InfoChem), and the University of Bologna is gratefully acknowledged.
History
School
Science
Department
Chemistry
Published in
European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry
Citation
LA ROSA, M. ... et al, 2017. An efficient method for the surface functionalization of luminescent quantum dots with lipoic acid-based ligands. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2017 (44), pp. 5143–5151.
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Acceptance date
2017-09-19
Publication date
2017
Notes
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: LA ROSA, M. ... et al, 2017. An efficient method for the surface functionalization of luminescent quantum dots with lipoic acid-based ligands. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2017 (44), pp. 5143–5151, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/ejic.201700781. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.