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Paper

J. Mater. Chem., 2009, 19, 8314 - 8319, DOI: 10.1039/b906575j

Homogenous, far-reaching tuning and highly emissive QD–silica core–shell nanocomposite synthesized via a delay photoactive procedure; their applications in two-photon imaging of human mesenchymal stem cells

Chih-Wei Lai, Yu-Hsiu Wang, Yu-Chun Chen, Cheng-Chih Hsieh, Borade Prajakta Uttam, Jong-Kai Hsiao, Cheng-Chih Hsu and Pi-Tai Chou

In this article, we present the exploration of a facile synthetic tactic incorporating delay-photo-oxidation to recover the loss in emission frequently encountered after encapsulating quantum dots (QDs) inside a silica shell. This facile synthesis procedure reproducibly increases emissive intensity of QDs (core)–SiO2 (shell) (60 nm) nanomaterials by >5 fold (QY from 3% to >15%). The resulting QDs (core)–SiO2 proved to be a single quantum dot in single SiO2, homogeneous and highly monodispered; their emissions have been successfully fine-tuned from visible to the near infrared region. We then demonstrate their power in biological imaging by labeling human mesenchymal stem cells under two-photon confocal microscopy. The results of low cytotoxicity, efficient labeling, and specific location nearby the nucleus characters of these nanoparticles should spark an intensive relevant research within a living system.

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