Solid state effective luminescent probe based on CdSe@CdS/amphiphilic co-polyarylene ether nitrile core-shell superparticles for Ag+ detection and optical strain sensing

• Published in: Sensors and actuators. B, Chemical Vol. 257; pp. 442 - 450
• Main Authors: Jia, Kun, He, Xiaohong, Zhou, Xuefei, Zhang, Dawei, Wang, Pan, Huang, Yumin, Xiaobo, Liu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 01.03.2018
• Subjects: Ag Ions detection; Amphiphilic polyarylene ether nitrile; Fluorescent probe; Microemulsion; Optical strain sensing; Quantum dots; Optical strain sensing; Amphiphilic polyarylene ether nitrile; Microemulsion; Quantum dots; Ag Ions detection; Fluorescent probe
• ISSN: 0925-4005; 1873-3077
• DOI: 10.1016/j.snb.2017.10.187

[Display omitted] •The novel amphiphilic polyarylene ether nitrile (amPEN) has been synthesized.•Hydrophobic quantum dot (QD) is transferred into water via self-assembling of amPEN.•Dual emitting superparticles (SP) are obtained by encapsulating QD with amPEN.•The obtained SP serve as solid-state effective fluorescence probe for Ag+ detection.•SP doped polydimethylsiloxane can be used as flexible optical strain sensor. In this work, a novel amphiphilic copolymer named polyarylene ether nitrile (amPEN) was synthesized and further employed to encapsulate oleic acid (OA) capped CdSe@CdS QD via one-step microemulsion self-assembling, which contributed to the facile fabrication of water dispersible QD/amPEN core-shell superparticles (SP) showing dual emissive feature. It was found that the obtained QD/amPEN core-shell SP can be employed as the sensitive and selective fluorescent probe for determination of trace concentration of Ag+ down to 1nM via the photo-induced electron transfer. More interestingly, the obtained QD/amPEN core-shell SP can be integrated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) to fabricate robust luminescent solid state films that still demonstrated sensitive detection of Ag+ even after placing in water for six days. Furthermore, the QD/amPEN core-shell SP doped PDMS film exhibited the stretching dependent luminescent emission, which implied the composite materials could be also developed as flexible optical strain sensors. Given the facile fabrication and competitive sensing performance both in solution phase and solid state, the present work basically provides a universal strategy for the construction of versatile multifunctional luminescent sensors using QD and polyarylene ethers as building blocks.