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Research Article

3D confined self-assembling of QD within super-engineering block copolymers as biocompatible superparticles enabling stimulus responsive solid state fluorescence

Xiaohong He1, Kun Jia1( ), Robert Marks2, Yiguo Hu3, Xiaobo Liu1
School of Materials and Energy, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 611731, China
The Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva 8410501, Israel
State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610051, China
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Abstract

Eliminating colloidal toxicity and enabling its intrinsic fluorescence in aggressive environmental conditions are the key challenges for commercializing hydrophobic cadmium based quantum dots (QD). Polyarylene ether nitriles (PEN) are an example of super-engineering thermoplastics that possess a unique combination of thermal stability, intrinsic fluorescence, biocompatibility and distinct emulsion self-assembly feature. Herein, the co-self-assembly of amphiphilic PEN with hydrophobic CdSe@ZnS QD, confined in the three-dimensional (3D) oil-in-water emulsion droplets, has been explored to fabricate fluorescent microparticles (FMP). It was found that these FMP demonstrated good biocompatibility (cell viability above 90%), while exhibiting a fluorescence emission in aqueous solution that was retained (intensity retention ratio above 80%) within the whole pH range of 1-14, as well as, after being subjected to autoclaving at 120 oC for 1 h. Interestingly, it was discovered that introduction of calcium ions in the emulsion self-assembly contributed to in-situ generation of phase changing nanoplates inside the FMP, which led to the photo-thermal modulated solid state fluorescence from drop-casted FMP film. Thanks to their versatile fluorescence, these FMP colloids were exploited as fluorescent probes for macrophages imaging, while micro-patterns with reversible changing of emission color were induced via thermal treatment and direct laser lithography.

Keywords

three-dimensional (3D) confinementself-assemblyquantum dotsamphiphilic polyarylene ether nitrilestimulus responsive fluorescence

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Nano Research
Volume 14 Issue 1,
January 2021
Pages 285-294
DOI: 10.1007/s12274-020-3086-0
Cite this article:
He X, Jia K, Marks R, et al. 3D confined self-assembling of QD within super-engineering block copolymers as biocompatible superparticles enabling stimulus responsive solid state fluorescence. Nano Research, 2021, 14(1): 285-294. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-3086-0
Topics:
BiocompatibilityBlock copolymers Cadmium compoundsFluorescenceIISemiconductor quantum dotsSolsVI semiconductorsZinc sulfide

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Received: 07 July 2020
Revised: 01 September 2020
Accepted: 02 September 2020
Published: 05 January 2021
© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature
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