Taylor made multi-component nanocrystals with plasmon-exciton interactions for fluorescence enhancement and sensing

该项目旨在开发新的合成途径，以获得大小、形状和复杂组成都适合的无机纳米晶体，并特别关注表现出等离子体激子-激子相互作用的系统，如荧光增强。种子介导法与金属针尖生长、阳离子交换技术和铸造模法相结合，有望生产出以前无法获得的纳米晶材料。阳离子交换反应可以很容易地将形状复杂的纳米晶体转化为其他材料，而不会改变它们的形状。“铸模”方法可以生产更多非传统形状，例如中空或凹陷的颗粒。这里的合成路线是从例如金属纳米颗粒开始，在其上生长氧化物或半导体室，并在第二步选择性地溶解金属。此外，等离子体金属尖端将选择性地生长在这些纳米晶体上。一旦合成技术充分发展，就将合成专门针对表现出可调等离子体激子相互作用的系统的定制多组分无机纳米晶。除了为纳米晶体中的等离子体激子-激子相互作用提供新的见解外，这些系统还将被设计为显示等离子体激元诱导的可调强荧光增强效应。该项目还将扩大到近红外光谱范围内的荧光增强，开辟了一个广阔的潜在应用领域。所获得的知识应该适用于例如下一代太阳能电池、LED和生物医学成像。此外，具有部分凹槽的纳米晶体(通过上述“铸模”方法合成)将被用于利用钥匙锁识别机制选择性地传感其他纳米粒子，从而产生等离子体激子-激子相互作用，从而钥匙锁识别诱导荧光增强。这些先进的系统将首先有选择地检测溶液中其他纳米颗粒的大小、形状和材料，这对许多类型的胶体纳米技术应用是有趣的。

The project aims at developing new synthetic pathways towards inorganic nanocrystals of tailored size, shape and complex compositions with a specific focus on systems exhibiting plasmon-exciton interactions such as fluorescence enhancement. The combination of seed mediated growth approaches together with metal tip growth, cation exchange techniques and cast mold approaches is expected to yield previously inaccessible nanocrystalline materials. Cation exchange reactions will allow to easily transform complicated shaped nanocrystals into other materials without changing their shape. „Cast mold“ approaches can produce more unconventional shapes, like e.g. hollow or concave particles. Here the synthesis route is to start with e.g. metal nanoparticles, onto which an oxide or a semiconductor compartment is grown, and to selectively dissolve the metal in a second step. Furthermore, plasmonic metal tips will be grown selectively onto these nanocrystals. Once the synthetic techniques are sufficiently developed, tailor made multicomponent inorganic nanocrystals with a specific focus on systems exhibiting tunable plasmon-exciton interactions will be synthesized. Apart from opening new insights into plasmon-exciton interactions in nanocrystals, these systems will be designed to show plasmon induced tunable strong fluorescence enhancement effects. The project will also be expanded towards fluorescence enhancement in the near infrared spectral range opening a broad field of potential applications. The gained knowledge should be applicable e.g. in next generation solar cells, LEDs and biomedical imaging. Furthermore, nanocrystals with partially concave compartments (synthesized via above mentioned „cast mold“ approaches) will be exploited for selective sensing of other nanoparticles using key-lock recognition mechanisms with resulting plasmon-exciton interactions and hence key-lock recognition induced fluorescence enhancement. These advanced systems will the first to size, shape and material selectively detect other nanoparticles in solution, which is interesting for many types of colloidal nanotechnological applications.