White light emission from helically stacked humin-mimic based H-aggregates in heteroatom free carbon dots.

White light emission (WLE), particularly from heteroatom free carbon dots (CDs), is unusual. Besides, deciphering the origin of WLE from a H-aggregated molecular fluorophore in such kinds of CDs is a challenging task due to their non-fluorescent character resulting from a forbidden transition from a lower-energy excitonic state. Therefore, rigorous investigation on their elusive excited state photophysical properties along with their steady-state optical phenomena has to be carried out to shed light on the nature of distinct emissive states formed in the CDs.

Development of a carbon dot and methylene blue NIR-emitting FLIM-FRET pair in niosomes for controlled ROS generation.

Non-ionic surfactant vesicular systems (niosomes) are structurally similar to lipid vesicles, differing only in the bilayer composition. Herein we report a unique method to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) utilizing a FLIM-FRET technique involving niosome-trapped yellow emissive carbon dots (YCDs) and methylene blue (MB) in aqueous medium under neutral conditions. Niosomes are biologically important because of their good stability and extremely low toxicity.