Highly fluorescent, water-soluble, size-tunable gold quantum dots.
Highly fluorescent, water-soluble, few-atom Au quantum dots have been created that behave as multielectron artificial atoms with discrete, size-tunable electronic transitions throughout the visible and near IR. Correlation of nanodot sizes with emission energies fits the simple relation, EFermi/N1/3, predicted by the jellium model. Providing the "missing link" between atomic and nanoparticle behavior in noble metals, these emissive, water-soluble Au nanoclusters open new opportunities for biological labels, energy transfer pairs, and light emitting sources in nanoscale optoelectronics.
School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0400, USA.
Jie
J
Zheng
Caiwei
C
Zhang
Robert M
RM
Dickson