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Highly efficient photoelectrochemical aptasensor based on CdS/CdTe QDs co-sensitized TiO2 nanoparticles designed for thrombin detection

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Abstract

A photoelectrochemical (PEC) sensor for the sensitive detection of thrombin (TB) was established. Co-sensitized combination of TiO2 nanoparticles combined with modified cadmium sulfide and cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdS/CdTe QDs) was utilized as a photoactive material. Successful growth of CdS/CdTe quantum dots on mesoporous TiO2 films occured by successive ion-layer adsorption and reaction. This interesting formation of co-sensitive structure is conducive to enhancing the photocurrent response by improving the use rate of light energy. Additionally, the step-level structure of CdS/CdTe QDs and TiO2 NPs shows a wide range of visible light absorption, facilitating the dissociation of excitons into free electrons and holes. Consequently, the photoelectric response of the PEC analysis platform is significantly enhanced. This constructed PEC aptasensor shows good detection of thrombin with a low detection limit (0.033 pM) and a wide linear range (0.0001–100 nM) in diluted actual human serum samples. In addition, this PEC aptasensor also has the characteristics of good stability and good reproducibility, which provides a novel insight for the quantitative measurement of other similar analytes.

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The data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51973102); Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (ZR2022MB042; ZR2019MB067); Qinghai Provincial Basic Research Program (2021-ZJ-710); Innovation Ability Improvement Project of Science and Technology Small and Medium-Size Enterprise in Shandong Province (2022TSGC1121); Talent Fund of QUST (2020).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Optic-Electric Sensing and Analytical Chemistry for Life Science, MOE, State Key Laboratory Base of Eco-Chemical Engineering, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266042, People’s Republic of China

    Xuejiao Xu, Yan Lu, Dandan Liu, Lu Zhang, Lu Zheng & Guangming Nie

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Xu, X., Lu, Y., Liu, D. et al. Highly efficient photoelectrochemical aptasensor based on CdS/CdTe QDs co-sensitized TiO2 nanoparticles designed for thrombin detection. Microchim Acta 191, 216 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00604-024-06279-3

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