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Updated: Jan 22, 2026

Production and Targeting of Monovalent Quantum Dots
Published on: October 23, 2014
Highly fluorescent Ti3C2 MXene quantum dots for macrophage labeling and Cu2+ ion sensing
Qingwen Guan1, Junfei Ma, Wenjing Yang
1State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, Beijing Key Laboratory of Biogas Upgrading Utilization, College of New Energy and Materials Science, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing, 102249, China. xuquan@cup.edu.cn.
Abstract:
Quantum dots, derived from two-dimensional (2D) materials, have shown promise in bioimaging, sensing and photothermal applications, and in white light emitting devices (WLEDs). Herein, nitrogen and phosphorus functionalized Ti3C2 MXene based quantum dots (N,P-MQDs) were successfully prepared through a top-bottom hydrothermal method. This type of photoluminescent quantum dots has realized green fluorescence for the first time at around 560 nm with a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 20.1%, the highest ever reported; meanwhile, it also exhibits excellent photostability and pH resistance capacities. Comprehensive characterization and well-resolved density functional theory (DFT) calculation were implemented to determine the mechanism of fluorescence shift and enhancement. Furthermore, the N,P-MQDs have been proved to efficiently act as fluorescent probes for macrophage labeling. In addition, the high sensitivity of the N,P-MQDs toward Cu2+ ions made them a low cost, sensitive, environment-friendly, and label-free fluorescence platform for Cu2+ detection. The outstanding performance of Ti3C2 MXene based quantum dots has demonstrated their great potential to be used as promising fluorescent probes in the fields of biological imaging, optical sensing, photoelectric conversion, etc.
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