Chiral non-stoichiometric ternary silver indium sulfide quantum dots: investigation on the chirality transfer by cysteine

Multishell Silver Indium Selenide-Based Quantum Dots and Their Poly(methyl methacrylate) Composites for Application in Red-Light-Emitting Diodes

In this work, the production of novel multishell silver indium selenide quantum dots (QDs) shelled with zinc selenide and zinc sulfide through a multistep synthesis precisely designed to develop high-quality red-emitting QDs is explored. The formation of the multishell nanoheterostructure significantly improves the photoluminescence quantum yield of the nanocrystals from 3% observed for the silver indium selenide core to 27 and 46% after the deposition of the zinc selenide and zinc sulfide layers, respectively. Moreover, the incorporation of the multishelled QDs in a poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) matrix via in situ radical polymerization is investigated, and the role of thiol ligand passivation is proven to be fundamental for the stabilization of the QDs during the polymerization step, preventing their decomposition and the relative luminescence quenching. In particular, the role of interface chemistry is investigated by considering both surface passivation by inorganic zinc chalcogenide layers, which allows us to improve the optical properties, and organic thiol ligand passivation, which is fundamental to ensuring the chemical stability of the nanocrystals during in situ radical polymerization. In this way, it is possible to produce silver-indium selenide QD-PMMA composites that exhibit bright red luminescence and high transparency, making them promising for potential applications in photonics. Finally, it is demonstrated that the new silver indium selenide QD-PMMA composites can serve as an efficient color conversion layer for the production of red light-emitting diodes.

Expanding the Horizons of Machine Learning in Nanomaterials to Chiral Nanostructures

Machine learning holds significant research potential in the field of nanotechnology, enabling nanomaterial structure and property predictions, facilitating materials design and discovery, and reducing the need for time-consuming and labor-intensive experiments and simulations. In contrast to their achiral counterparts, the application of machine learning for chiral nanomaterials is still in its infancy, with a limited number of publications to date. This is despite the great potential of machine learning to advance the development of new sustainable chiral materials with high values of optical activity, circularly polarized luminescence, and enantioselectivity, as well as for the analysis of structural chirality by electron microscopy. In this review, an analysis of machine learning methods used for studying achiral nanomaterials is provided, subsequently offering guidance on adapting and extending this work to chiral nanomaterials. An overview of chiral nanomaterials within the framework of synthesis-structure-property-application relationships is presented and insights on how to leverage machine learning for the study of these highly complex relationships are provided. Some key recent publications are reviewed and discussed on the application of machine learning for chiral nanomaterials. Finally, the review captures the key achievements, ongoing challenges, and the prospective outlook for this very important research field.

Ligand induced chirality in In2S3 nanoparticles

Chiral inorganic nanostructures have attracted a lot of attention over the last few years. Here we report the first observation of chirality in indium sulfide nanoparticles, which have been produced by a co-precipitation reaction in the presence of cysteine as a chiral agent. The process resulted in the production of spherical nanoparticles with an average diameter of around 3.6 nm. Circular dichroism spectroscopy of the nanoparticles showed an intense chiroptical signal corresponding to the indium sulfide excitonic transition, confirming the successful transfer of chirality to the In2S3 inorganic matrix. Nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of a colloidal solution of the nanoparticles demonstrated critical evidence of chemisorption of the chiral ligand on the surface of the nanoparticles and revealed a characteristic fast chemical exchange between the ligand chemisorbed on the surface of the nanoparticles and the free ligand in solution. Finally, the effect of the chiral ligand's structure on the transfer of chirality was investigated, with consideration of other amino acid ligands, and the critical role of the thiolate group in the optimisation of the chiral transfer was observed. This research is expected to stimulate further development and applications of new chiral semiconductor nanomaterials.

Threonine functionalized colloidal cadmium sulfide (CdS) quantum dots: The role of solvent and counterion in ligand induced chiroptical properties

The functionalization of semiconductor nanocrystals, quantum dots (QDs), with small organic molecules has been studied extensively to gain better knowledge on how to tune the electronic, optical and chiroptical properties of QDs. Chiral QDs have progressively emerged as key materials in a vast range of applications including biosensing and biorecognition, imaging, asymmetric catalysis, optoelectronic devices, and spintronics. To engage the full potential of the unique properties of chiral nanomaterials and be able to prepare them with tailorable chiroptical characteristics, it is essential to understand how chirality is rendered from chiral molecular ligands at the surface of nanocrystals to the electronic states of QDs. Using a series of polar protic and aprotic solvents together with ammonium (NH4+), tetramethylammonium (TMA+), and tetrabutylammonium (TBA+) countercations in the preparation of threonine-functionalized cadmium sulfide (Thr-CdS) QDs by phase transfer ligand exchange approach, we demonstrated the significance of the role both the solvent and the countercations play in the transfer of chirality from chiral molecular ligand to achiral semiconductor QDs as apparent by the modulations of the signatures and anisotropy of the circular dichroism (CD) spectra. Moreover, we have utilized tetrabutylammonium countercation to successfully synthesize chiral QDs in nonpolar cyclohexane solvent for the first time. This study provides further insights into the origin of the ligand induced chirality of colloidal nanomaterials and facilitates the synthesis of tailormade chiral QDs.

Green synthesis of glyco-CuInS2 QDs with visible/NIR dual emission for 3D multicellular tumor spheroid and in vivo imaging

Glyco-quantum dots (glyco-QDs) have attracted significant interest in bioimaging applications, notably in cancer imaging, because they effectively combine the glycocluster effect with the exceptional optical properties of QDs. The key challenge now lies in how to eliminate the high heavy metal toxicity originating from traditional toxic Cd-based QDs for in vivo bioimaging. Herein, we report an eco-friendly pathway to prepare nontoxic Cd-free glyco-QDs in water by the "direct" reaction of thiol-ending monosaccharides with metal salts precursors. The formation of glyco-CuInS₂ QDs could be explained by a nucleation-growth mechanism following the LaMer model. As-prepared four glyco-CuInS₂ QDs were water-soluble, monodispersed, spherical in shape and exhibited size range of 3.0-4.0 nm. They exhibited well-separated dual emission in the visible region (500-590 nm) and near-infrared range (~ 827 nm), which may be attributable to visible excitonic emission and near-infrared surface defect emission. Meanwhile, the cell imaging displayed the reversibly distinct dual-color (green and red) fluorescence in tumor cells (HeLa, A549, MKN-45) and excellent membrane-targeting properties of glyco-CuInS₂ QDs based on their good biorecognition ability. Importantly, these QDs succeed in penetrating uniformly into the interior (the necrotic zone) of 3D multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTS) due to their high negative charge (zeta potential values ranging from - 23.9 to - 30.1 mV), which overcame the problem of poor penetration depth of existing QDs in in vitro spheroid models. So, confocal analysis confirmed their excellent ability to penetrate and label tumors. Thus, the successful application in in vivo bioimaging of these glyco-QDs verified that this design strategy is an effective, low cost and simple procedure for developing green nanoparticles as cheap and promising fluorescent bioprobes.