Cucurbiturils brighten Au nanoclusters in water
Tao Jiang, Guojuan Qu, Jie Wang, Xiang Ma, He Tian
Abstract
host-guest self-assembly between cucurbiturils (CBs) and FGGC (Phe-Gly-Gly-Cys peptide). In aqueous solutions, CB/FGGC-AuNCs presented an extremely enhanced red phosphorescence emission with a quantum yield (QY) of 51% for CB[7] and 39% for CB[8], while simple FGGC-AuNCs only showed a weak emission with a QY of 7.5%. Furthermore, CB[7]/FGGC-AuNCs showed excellent results in live cell luminescence imaging for A549 cancer cells. Our study demonstrates that host-guest self-assembly assisted by macrocycles is a facile and effective tool to non-covalently modify and adjust optical properties of nanostructures on ultra-small scales.
Topics & Concepts
NanoclustersCucurbiturilNanotechnologyAqueous solutionChemistryCrystallographyMaterials scienceSupramolecular chemistryCrystal structurePhysical chemistryNanocluster Synthesis and ApplicationsAdvanced Nanomaterials in CatalysisSupramolecular Self-Assembly in Materials