title: Sized controlled synthesis, purification, and cell studies with silicon quantum dots.
abstract: This article describes the size control synthesis of silicon quantum dots with simple microemulsion techniques. The silicon nanocrystals are small enough to be in the strong confinement regime and photoluminesce in the blue region of the visible spectrum and the emission can be tuned by changing the nanocrystal size. The silicon quantum dots were capped with allylamine either a platinum catalyst or UV-radiation. An extensive purification protocol is reported and assessed using (1)H NMR to produce ultra pure silicon quantum dots suitable for biological studies. The highly pure quantum dots were used in cellular uptake experiments and monitored using confocal microscopy. The results showed that the amine terminated silicon nanocrystals accumulated in lysosome but not in nuclei and could be used as bio-markers to monitor cancer cells over long timescales.
authors: School of Chemical and Physical Sciences, MacDiarmid Institute of Advance Materials and Nanotechnology, Victoria University of Wellington, P. O. Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand.
authors: Amane
authors: A
authors: Shiohara
authors: Sujay
authors: S
authors: Prabakar
authors: Angelique
authors: A
authors: Faramus
authors: Chia-Yen
authors: CY
authors: Hsu
authors: Ping-Shan
authors: PS
authors: Lai
authors: Peter T
authors: PT
authors: Northcote
authors: Richard D
authors: RD
authors: Tilley
mesh_terms: D000499:Allylamine / Q000737:chemistry; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D004655:Emulsions; D006801:Humans; D008247:Lysosomes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D019906:Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular; D010316:Particle Size; D045663:Quantum Dots; D019163:Reducing Agents; D012825:Silicon / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays
chemical_list: D004655:Emulsions; D019163:Reducing Agents; D000499:Allylamine; D012825:Silicon