LEAPS-MPS: Water-soluble Afterglow Luminescent Nanocomposites for Bioimaging and Bioanalysis

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In this project, co-funded by the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and managed by the Chemistry Division at NSF, Steven Wu and his students at the University of South Dakota will perform studies that aim to develop a range of water-soluble afterglow luminescent nanocomposites for bioimaging and bioanalysis, using carbon dots (CDs) and semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (SPNs). Due to the strong autofluorescence from biosamples and limited light penetration depth, it is still a challenge to eliminate background noise during optical bioimaging and bioanalysis to achieve high sensitivity and accuracy. Dr. Wu and his students will investigate the synthesis, characterization, and afterglow luminescent mechanisms of the CDs@SPN nanocomposites and will work to demonstrate their potential in bioimaging and bioanalysis. Their studies are expected to provide insight into the design of afterglow luminescent probes with reduced background noise for bioimaging and bioanalysis, thereby improving detection sensitivity and accuracy. In addition, Dr. Wu and his team will reach out to Tribal Colleges and Universities in South Dakota and provide opportunities for underrepresented undergraduate students to participate in research projects and encourage them to consider science as a career option. Under this award, the Wu research team at the University of South Dakota proposes to address the challenges of strong background noise during optical bioimaging and bioanalysis using afterglow luminescent nanomaterials. They will perform chemical synthesis, characterization and mechanistic investigations of the afterglow nanomaterials that they are developing for bioimaging applications. The technical objectives of this project are four-fold: (i) synthesis of of a spectrum of afterglow carbon dots by adjusting the doping elements and carbonization level; (ii) synthesis of afterglow carbon dot-doped semiconducting polymer nanoparticles (CD@SPNs), which could constitute a general approach to fabricating water-soluble afterglow luminescent probes based on Fӧrster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between CDs and SPNs; (iii) investigating the mechanism of afterglow luminescence and (iv) implementation of afterglow luminescent nanoprobes in bioimaging and bioanalysis to achieve high sensitivity and accuracy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.