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Preparation of Ag@SiO2@NH2 core-shell nanocomposites for the fluorescence enhancement of carbon quantum dots

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Abstract

In this paper, the fluorescence enhancement phenomenon of carbon quantum dots (C-QDs) via metal fluorescence effect has been investigated. Firstly, uniform Ag nanoparticles was prepared, which theoretically can supply a strong enhancement effect with a diameter as small as 20 nm. Then SiO2 shell was utilized to control the distance between Ag core and C-QDs while surface charge of as-synthesized Ag@SiO2 was further modified to bond C-QDs via electrostatic effect. Four different kinds of SiO2 shell, with thickness 12 nm, 15 nm, 20 nm, and 27 nm, were synthesized to study the enhancement effect of distance. With the increase of SiO2 shell, the fluorescence of Ag@SiO2@NH2-C-QDs nanocomposites rise first but then fall while the sample with the 20-nm shell obtained the best enhancement effect as high as 3.92-fold. Surface charge vibration of metal particles was used to explain this phenomenon.

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Funding

This research was supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program, Grant no. 2011CB013004) and Major Project of State Key Laboratory of Tribology (Grant no. SKLT2014A01).

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Author notes

  1. Qian Wu and Zhulong Zhou contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tribology, School of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Qian Wu, Zhulong Zhou & Ming Zhou

  2. BOE Technology Group CO., Ltd., Beijing, 100016, China

    Qian Wu

  3. Department of Computer, School of Computer and Communication Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing (USTB), Beijing, 100083, China

    Taohong Zhang

  4. Beijing Key Laboratory of Knowledge Engineering for Materials Science, Beijing, 100083, China

    Taohong Zhang

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  1. Qian Wu
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  2. Zhulong Zhou
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  3. Taohong Zhang
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  4. Ming Zhou
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Correspondence to Taohong Zhang or Ming Zhou.

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Wu, Q., Zhou, Z., Zhang, T. et al. Preparation of Ag@SiO2@NH2 core-shell nanocomposites for the fluorescence enhancement of carbon quantum dots. J Nanopart Res 21, 259 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-019-4676-1

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