Despite the differences in color, these cuvettes each contain very similar nanomaterials. Each of these batches of carbon dots is made by carbonization, which in this case entails heating up long carbon-containing molecules, such as polysaccharides, in acid until they start to coalesce into nanoparticles. By changing the starting materials’ concentrations, the researchers were able to exert some level of control over how their carbon dots formed. For example, these carbon dots differ in the amount of structural defects, the type of functional groups on their surfaces, and the sizes of their sp2 domains, all of which affect the color that each glows under ultraviolet light.
Maria J. Guluma Escamilla, a research assistant at the Universidad del Rosario, created these carbon dot suspensions as part of her work with bionanomedicine professors Diana C. Rodríguez Burbano and Alexander Rodríguez López. The team’s aim is to make a single platform that could be tuned for several biomedical applications, including sensing in the body and medicine delivery.
Submitted by Maria J. Guluma Escamilla/Diana C. Rodríguez Burbano/Alexander Rodríguez López/Universidad del Rosario
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