DNA dendrimer-templated copper nanoparticles: self-assembly, aggregation-induced emission enhancement and sensing of lead ions.

Copper nanomaterials based on DNA scaffold (DNA-Cu NMs) are becoming a novel fluorescent material, but it is still challenging to obtain highly fluorescent DNA-Cu NMs with excellent stability. In this work, we report a kind of copper nano-assemblies (Cu NASs) with aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) property using DNA dendrimers with sticky end as template. The sticky end of the DNA dendrimers induced the formation of much bigger Cu NASs with average size ranging from 131 to 264 nm, depending on the length of the DNA dendrimer sticky end from 6 bases to 27 bases.