Convenient generation of quantum dot-incorporated photonic crystal beads for multiplex bioassays

Barcode particles have a demonstrated value for multiplexed bioassays in clinical diagnostics, drug discovery, and so on. Attempts to develop this technology are focusing on the generation of novel particles with a large number of identifications to increase the throughput of the assays. Here we report a new type of barcode particles with quantum dot (QD)-photonic crystal (PC) joint spectrum encoding. These barcode particles are simply prepared by in-situ polymerization of CdTe QDs-contained acrylamide pre-gel in the colloidal photonic crystal beads (PCBs). By encapsulating different wavelength-and-intensity QDs into the PCBs with various-reflection spectra, thousands of available barcode particles could be obtained. Moreover, by employing magnetic nanoparticles into the PCBs, the achieved barcode particles could be conferred a function of controllable movement under magnetic field. This feature could significantly increase the sensitivity and simplify the processing of the bioassays.