Luminescent carbon dots with concentration-dependent emission in solution and yellow emission in solid state

Abstract Carbon dots (CDs) is a class of zero-dimensional carbon nanomaterials with favorable stability and optical properties. However, CDs in solid state often suffer from fluorescence quenching due to π-π stacking of conjugated systems, like most small molecules or organic dyes. Herein, we prepared the CDs that generate bright yellow luminescence in solid state without any additional matrix, meanwhile the solid CDs are inclined to assembly into spherical structure. While the CDs are dissolved in aqueous solution, the photoluminescence (PL) emission from blue to green can be realized by regulating the concentration of CDs. With the concentration increasing, the self-assembly behavior of CDs is observed in solution, which leads to the bathochromic shift of photoluminescence. Besides, the mechanism of PL conversion in this process was proposed based on the characterization results, that with the concentration of CDs rising in solution, π-π interaction was restrained while electron redistribution was induced. Consequently, a localized state II caused by electron rearrangement gradually becomes the predominant emission state, resulting in the PL emission shifting to long-wavelength region. Moreover, CDs have shown favorable potentials in the field of anti-counterfeit and multicolor bioimaging, making the CDs highly attractive for a wide variety of applications.