Carbon dots (CDs) have potential applications in various fields such as energy, catalysis, and bioimaging due to their strong and tuneable photoluminescence (PL), low toxicity, and robust chemical inertness. Although several PL mechanisms have been proposed, the origin of PL in CDs is still in debate because of the ensembled nature of the heterogeneous luminophores present in the CDs. To unravel the origin of PL in CDs, we performed time-resolved spectroscopy on two types of CDs: nitrogen-doped (N-CD) and boron-nitrogen co-doped (BN-CD). The PL decays were fitted by stretched exponential functions to estimate the distribution of the decay kinetics in the CDs, which have different PL lifetime distributions. Both CDs displayed main, blue emission decaying in 15 ns, which originates from the dominant molecular state. The analysis of the non-exponential PL decay using stretched exponential fits revealed that the functional surface luminophores are of less variety but of more environmental heterogeneity and have much lower populations in BN-CD than in N-CD.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c8cp01619d | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
January 2025
Department of Physics, TU Dortmund University, Otto-Hahn-Straße 4, 44227, Dortmund, Germany.
Time-resolved momentum microscopy is an emerging technique based on photoelectron spectroscopy for characterizing ultrafast electron dynamics and the out-of-equilibrium electronic structure of materials in the entire Brillouin zone with high efficiency. In this article, we introduce a setup for time-resolved momentum microscopy based on an energy-filtered momentum microscope coupled to a custom-made high-harmonic generation photon source driven by a multi-100 kHz commercial Yb-ultrafast laser that delivers fs pulses in the extreme ultraviolet range. The laser setup includes a nonlinear pulse compression stage employing spectral broadening in a Herriott-type bulk-based multi-pass cell.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
January 2025
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204, United States.
Here we demonstrate how a biologically relevant molecule, riboflavin (vitamin B2), operates by a dual mode of action to effectively control crystallization of ammonium urate (NHHU), which is associated with cetacean kidney stones. In situ microfluidics and atomic force microscopy experiments confirm a strong interaction between riboflavin and NHHU crystal surfaces that substantially inhibits layer nucleation and spreading by kinetic mechanisms of step pinning and kink blocking. Riboflavin does not alter the distribution of tautomeric urate isomers, but its adsorption on NHHU crystal surfaces does interfere with the effects of minor urate tautomer by limiting its ability to induce NHHU crystal defects while also suppressing NHHU nucleation and inhibiting crystal growth by 80% at an uncharacteristically low modifier concentration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrobiology
January 2025
Experimental Biophysics and Space Sciences, Department of Physics, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
The (PSS) experiment was part of the European Space Agency's mission and was conducted on the International Space Station from 2014 to 2016. The PSS experiment investigated the properties of montmorillonite clay as a protective shield against degradation of organic compounds that were exposed to elevated levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation in space. Additionally, we examined the potential for montmorillonite to catalyze UV-induced breakdown of the amino acid alanine and its potential to trap the resulting photochemical byproducts within its interlayers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnal Chem
January 2025
ICGM, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, ENSCM, 34000 Montpellier, France.
In this contribution, we apply our newly developed ball-milling platform, which combines Raman spectroscopy and thermal (IR) imaging, as well as acoustic and high-speed optical video recordings, to the synthesis and transformation of citric acid-isonicotinamide (1:2) cocrystal polymorphs in transparent PMMA jars. Particularly, we demonstrate how Raman, temperature, acoustic, and video data are complementary and enable detection and connection of chemical and physical events happening during ball-milling in a time-resolved manner. Importantly, we show that the formation of the three cocrystal polymorphs can be detected through acoustic analyses solely.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAngew Chem Int Ed Engl
January 2025
East China Normal University, Department of Chemistry, 3663 N. Zhongshan Road, 200062, Shanghai, CHINA.
Aiming at the construction of novel platforms with excellent performances in both circularly polarized photoluminescence (CP-PL) and electrochemiluminescence (CP-ECL), a new family of pyrenophanes with rigidly locked pyrene dimers and varied bridges has been designed and synthesized. Attributed to densely packed pyrene excimers, the resultant pyrenophanes revealed tunable bridge-dependent emission behaviors, as investigated by femtosecond time-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy. More importantly, all these planar chiral pyrenophanes display strong CP-PL with large dissymmetry factor (gPL) values up to 0.
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