TY - JOUR A1 - Goryacheva, O. A. A1 - Wegner, Karl David A1 - Sobolev, A. M. A1 - Häusler, I. A1 - Gaponik, N. A1 - Gorycheva, I. Y. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Influence of particle architecture on the photoluminescence properties of silica‑coated CdSe core/shell quantum dots N2 - Light-emitting nanoparticles like semiconductor nanocrystals (termed quantum dots, QDs) are promising candidates for biosensing and bioimaging applications based on their bright and stable photoluminescent properties. As high-quality QDs are often synthesized in organic solvents, strategies needed to be developed to render them water-dispersible without affecting their optical properties and prevent changes in postmodification steps like the biofunctionalization with antibodies or DNA. Despite a large number of studies on suitable surface modification procedures, the preparation of water-soluble QDs for nanobiotechnology applications still presents a challenge. To highlight the advantages of surface silanization, we systematically explored the influence of the core/multishell architecture of CdSe/CdS/ZnS QDs and the silanization conditions on the optical properties of the resulting silanized QDs. Our results show that the optical properties of silica-coated CdSe/CdS/ZnS QDs are best preserved in the presence of a thick CdS (6 monolayers (ML)) intermediate shell, providing a high photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY), and a relatively thick ZnS (4.5 ML) external shell, effectively shielding the QDs from the chemical changes during silica coating. In addition to the QD core/shell architecture, other critical parameters of the silica-coating process, that can have an influence on the optical properties of the QD, include the choice of the surfactant and its concentration used for silica coating. The highest PL QY of about 46% was obtained by a microemulsion silica-coating procedure with the surfactant Brij L4, making these water-dispersible QDs to wellsuited optical reporters in future applications like fluorescence immunoassays, biomedicine, and bioimaging. KW - Nano KW - Nanomaterial KW - Particle KW - Semiconductor KW - Quantum do KW - Photoluminescence KW - Photophysics KW - Lifetime KW - Sensor KW - Mechanism KW - Surface KW - Shell KW - Silica KW - Silanization KW - Synthesis PY - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00216-022-04005-7 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Springer AN - OPUS4-54546 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -