title: Luminescent silica nanoparticles: extending the frontiers of brightness.
abstract: Silica nanoparticles are versatile platforms with many intrinsic features, such as low toxicity. Proper design and derivatization yields particularly stable colloids, even in physiological conditions, and provides them with multiple functions. A suitable choice of dyes and synthetic strategy may, in particular, yield a very bright nanosystem. Silica nanoparticles thus offer unique potential in the nanotechnology arena, and further improvement and optimization could substantially increase their application in fields of high social and economic impact, such as medical diagnostics and therapy, environmental and food analysis, and security. This paper describes silica-based, multicomponent nanosystems with intrinsic directional energy- and electron-transfer processes, on which highly valued functions like light harvesting and signal amplification are based.
authors: Dipartimento di Chimica G. Ciamician, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Via Selmi 2, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
authors: Sara
authors: S
authors: Bonacchi
authors: Damiano
authors: D
authors: Genovese
authors: Riccardo
authors: R
authors: Juris
authors: Marco
authors: M
authors: Montalti
authors: Luca
authors: L
authors: Prodi
authors: Enrico
authors: E
authors: Rampazzo
authors: Nelsi
authors: N
authors: Zaccheroni