Synthesis and characterization of photoswitchable fluorescent SiO2 nanoparticles
Florian May1, Michael Peter, Andreas Hütten
1Organic Chemistry I, Department of Chemistry, Bielefeld University, P. O. Box 100131, 35501 Bielefeld, Germany.
Chemistry (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)
|January 4, 2012
Abstract:
Switchable fluorescent silica nanoparticles have been prepared by covalently incorporating a fluorophore and a photochromic compound inside the particle core. The fluorescence can be switched reversibly between an on- and off-state via energy transfer. The particles were synthesized using different amounts of the photoswitchable compound (spiropyran) and the fluorophore (rhodamine B) in a size distribution between 98 and 140 nm and were characterized in terms of size, switching properties, and fluorescence efficiency by TEM, and UV\Vis and fluorescence spectroscopy.
