Highly fluorescent nitrogen and boron doped carbon quantum dots for selective and sensitive detection of Fe.

Due to the essential role of Fe3+ in physiological and pathological processes, the detection of Fe3+ has drawn increasing attention in the field of disease diagnosis and environmental protection. However, most existing methods require either cumbersome sample pretreatment or sophisticated and expensive test equipment. Recently, carbon quantum dots have found a wide range of applications such as nanoprobes for Fe3+ determination, albeit with limited sensitivity and selectivity.