Ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles: preparation strategies and bioapplications


Ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles: preparation strategies and bioapplications

Licciardello, N.; Hsu, C.-W.; Prasetyanto, E. A.; Hunoldt, S.; Viehweger, K.; Stephan, H.; de Cola, L.

The use of nanoparticles in multimodal bio-imaging is attracting increasing interest, but toxicity and accumulation in organs still limit their in vivo applications. Silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) are very promising in this respect as their size, 1.5 - 4 nm, can allow body excretion. In addition Si NPs are photo- and chemical stable, possess bright tunable luminescence and can be covalently functionalized with desired molecules. Indeed several techniques have been described to obtain Si NPs [1-3] with different sizes and bearing various functional groups.
Here we report on some optimized wet chemistry techniques to prepare ultrasmall (< 5 nm) Si NPs and, in particular, the focus is on microemulsion methods and hydrothermal synthesis. The obtained Si NPs can bear different functional groups, allowing a wide spectrum of subsequent conjugations. Once functionalized and purified, Si NPs were characterized by HR-TEM and IR spectroscopy, and their photophysical properties were investigated. Reactivity and properties of the NPs obtained by various methods will be compared and the results of in vitro and in vivo experiments will be shown to demonstrate the great potentialities of such ultrasmall Si NPs.
This work was financially supported by Helmholtz Virtual Institute “Nano-Tracking”, Agreement No. VH-VI-421

1. J. H. Warner et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 4550 –4554
2. M. Rosso-Vasic et al., Small, 2008, 4, 1835–1841
3. Y. Zhong et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135, 8350-8356

  • Lecture (Conference)
    E-MRS Spring Meeting, 26.-30.05.2014, Lille, France

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Publ.-Id: 20693