I-Corps: Large Scale Production of Semiconductor Quantum Dots for Biomedical Imaging in the Near-Infrared

胶体半导体纳米晶或量子点(NCS)是一种小的、高度荧光的无机粒子，它潜在地结合了晶体半导体和有机小分子的正性。最近，研究人员发现了低温制备II-VI和IV-VI硫系化合物NCS的基本化学反应机理，如CdSe或PbSe NCS。该项目的总体目标将包括将NC合成反应扩大1000倍，同时保持以标准指标衡量的高质量纳米颗粒。通常的方法是使用具有可调反应性的NC化学前体分子来控制NC的生长速度。研究人员将有能力使大量较小的NC成核，然后使用这些纳米颗粒在比传统使用的规模大得多的规模上种植较大尺寸的NC。将特别关注近红外NC，这是商业上无法获得的，并且在有机染料发射较差的生物医学相关波长上发光。在传统上是分子(如生物医学成像)或块状无机半导体(如太阳能电池、显示器、发光设备和新型激光器)专属领域的领域，NCS可能会潜在地推动新技术的发展。例如，与传统用于生物成像的有机染料相比，NCS具有许多优势，包括更明亮的荧光，更高的光稳定性，以及同时在几个波长上成像的能力。到该项目结束时，研究人员计划开发出在大规模核壳NCS上进行合成的方法学，用于可见光和红外光子应用，为基于该技术的初创公司提供大量潜在机会。

Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals or quantum dots (NCs) are small, highly fluorescent inorganic particles that potentially combine the positive qualities of crystalline semiconductors and small organic molecules. Recently, researchers have discovered a fundamental chemical reaction mechanism underlying low temperature preparations of II-VI and IV-VI chalcogenide NCs, such as CdSe or PbSe NCs. The overall goal of the project will involve scaling up the NC synthesis reaction 1000-fold, while maintaining high quality nanoparticles as measured by standard metrics. The general approach is to use NC chemical precursor molecules with tunable reactivity to control rates of NC growth. Researchers will have the ability to nucleate huge amounts of smaller NCs and then use these nanoparticles to seed the growth of larger sized NCs on a much bigger scale than traditionally used. There will be particular focus on near-infrared NCs, which are not available commercially, and which fluoresce at bio-medically relevant wavelengths where organic dyes emit poorly. NCs can potentially drive novel technology in areas that are traditionally the exclusive domain of either molecules (such as biomedical imaging) or bulk inorganic semiconductors (such as solar cells, displays, light emitting devices, and novel lasers). For example, NCs have many advantages over organic dyes traditionally used for biological imaging including much brighter fluorescence, significantly more photostability, and the ability to image at several wavelengths simultaneously. By the end of this project researchers plan to have developed the methodology to synthesize on the large scale core-shell NCs, for visible and infrared photonic applications, providing a very large set of potential opportunities for a startup company based on this technology.