TY - JOUR A1 - Martynenko, Irina V. A1 - Kusic, Dragana A1 - Weigert, Florian A1 - Stafford, S. A1 - Donnelly, F. C. A1 - Evstigneev, R. A1 - Gromova, Y. A1 - Baranov, A. V. A1 - Rühl, Bastian A1 - Kunte, Hans-Jörg A1 - Gun'ko, Y. K. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Magneto-fluorescent microbeads for bacteria detection constructed from superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles and AIS/ZnS quantum dots N2 - The efficient and sensitive detection of pathogenic microorganisms in aqueous environments, such as water used in medical applications, drinking water, and cooling water of industrial plants, requires simple and fast methods suitable for multiplexed detection such as flow cytometry (FCM) with optically encoded carrier beads. For this purpose, we combine fluorescent Cd-free Ag−In−S ternary quantum dots (t-QDs) with fluorescence Lifetimes (LTs) of several hundred nanoseconds and superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles (SPIONs) with mesoporous CaCO3 microbeads to a magneto-fluorescent bead platform that can be surface-functionalized with bioligands, such as antibodies. This inorganic bead platform enables immuno-magnetic separation, target enrichment, and target quantification with optical readout. The beads can be detected with steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry (FCM). Moreover, they are suited for readout by time gated emission. In the following, the preparation of these magneto-fluorescent CaCO3 beads, their spectroscopic and analytic characterization, and their conjugation with bacteria-specific antibodies are presented as well as proof-of-concept measurements with Legionella pneumophila including cell cultivation and plating experiments for bacteria quantification. Additionally, the possibility to discriminate between the long-lived emission of the LT-encoded capture and carrier CaCO3 beads and the short-lived Emission of the dye-stained bacteria with time-resolved fluorescence techniques and single wavelength excitation is demonstrated. KW - Fluorescence KW - method KW - lifetime KW - quantum yield KW - particle KW - magnetic nanoparticle KW - immunoseparation KW - flow cytometry KW - fluorescence microscopy KW - nanoparticle KW - quantum dot KW - AIS QD KW - fluorescence KW - bacteria detection KW - bacteria KW - antibody KW - Legionella KW - screening tes KW - FLIM PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01812 SN - 0003-2700 SN - 1520-6882 VL - 91 SP - 12661 EP - 12669 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington, DC AN - OPUS4-50117 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Martynenko, Irina V. ED - Baimuratov, A. S. ED - Weigert, Florian ED - Soares, J. X. ED - Dhamo, Lorena ED - Nickl, Philip ED - Doerfel, I. ED - Pauli, Jutta ED - Rukhlenko, I. D. ED - Baranov, A. V. ED - Resch-Genger, Ute T1 - Photoluminescence of Ag–In–S/ZnS quantum dots: Excitation energy dependence and low-energy electronic structure N2 - Cd-free I–III–VI group semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) like Ag–In–S and Cu–In–S show unstructured absorption spectra with a pronounced Urbach tail, rendering the determination of their band gap energy (Eg) and the energy structure of the exciton difficult. Additionally, the origin of the broad photoluminescence (PL) band with lifetimes of several hundred nanoseconds is still debated. This encouraged us to study the excitation energy dependence (EED) of the PL maxima, PL spectral band widths, quantum yields (QYs), and decay kinetics of AIS/ZnS QDs of different size, composition, and surface capping ligands. These results were then correlated with the second derivatives of the corresponding absorption spectra. The excellent match between the onset of changes in PL band position and spectral width with the minima found for the second derivatives of the absorption spectra underlines the potential of the EED approach for deriving Eg values of these ternary QDs from PL data. The PL QY is, however, independent of excitation energy in the energy range studied. From the EED of the PL features of the AIS/ZnS QDs we could also derive a mechanism of the formation of the low-energy electronic structure. This was additionally confirmed by a comparison of the EED of PL data of as-synthesized and size-selected QD ensembles and the comparison of these PL data with PL spectra of single QDs. These results indicate a strong contribution of intrinsic inhomogeneous PL broadening to the overall emission features of AIS/ZnS QDs originating from radiative transitions from a set of energy states of defects localized at different positions within the quantum dot volume, in addition to contributions from dimensional and chemical broadening. This mechanism was confirmed by numerically modelling the absorption and PL energies with a simple mass approximation for spherical QDs and a modified donor–acceptor model, thereby utilizing the advantages of previously proposed PL mechanisms of ternary QDs. These findings will pave the road to a deeper understanding of the nature of PL in quantum confined I–III–VI group semiconductor nanomaterials. KW - Core/shell quantum dot KW - Silver indium sulfide KW - Defect photoluminescence KW - Photoluminescence quantum yield KW - Single-dot spectroscopy PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-019-2398-4 SN - 1998-0124 SN - 1998-0000 VL - 12 IS - 7 SP - 1595 EP - 1603 PB - Springer Nature AN - OPUS4-48503 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - EvstigneevT, Roman V. A1 - Parfenov, Peter S. A1 - Dubavik, Aliaksei A1 - Cherevkov, Sergei A A1 - Fedorov, Anatoly V A1 - Martynenko, Irina V. A1 - Resch-Genger, Ute A1 - Ushakova, Elena V. A1 - Baranov, Alexander V. T1 - Time-resolved FRET in AgInS2/ZnS-CdSe/ZnS quantum dot systems N2 - The fast and accurate detection of disease-related biomarkers and potentially harmful analytes in different matrices is one of the main challenges in the life sciences. In order to achieve high signal-to-background ratios with frequently used photoluminescence techniques, luminescent reporters are required that are either excitable in the first diagnostic window or reveal luminescence lifetimes exceeding that of autofluorescent matrix components. Here, we demonstrate a reporter concept relying on broad band emissive ternary quantum dots (QDs) with luminescence lifetimes of a few hundred nanoseconds utilized for prolongating the lifetimes of organic or inorganic emitters with lifetimes in the order of a very few 10 ns or less through fluorescence resonant energy transfer. Using spectrally resolved and time-resolved measurements of the system optical response we demonstrate the potential of lifetime multiplexing with such systems exemplarily for AgInS2/ZnS and CdSe/ZnS QDs. KW - Nano KW - Nanomaterial KW - Ternary quantum dots KW - AIS KW - Semiconductor nanocrystal KW - Photoluminescence KW - Mechanism KW - Quantum yield KW - Photophysics KW - Energy transfer KW - Lifetime KW - Time-gated emission PY - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6528/ab0136 SN - 0957-4484 SN - 1361-6528 VL - 30 IS - 19 SP - 195501, 1 EP - 7 PB - IOP Publishing Ltd AN - OPUS4-47434 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -