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Updated: Nov 12, 2025
Optical Trapping of Nanoparticles
Published on: January 15, 2013
Preliminary studies into fluorescent semiconductor nanorods for the detection of latent fingermarks: Size matters,
Sorour Shahbazi1, Dechao Chen1, Guohua Jia1
1Curtin Institute of Functional Molecules and Interfaces, School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845, Australia.
Abstract:
The effect of the shape of semiconductor nanocrystals on their performance for visualising latent fingermarks was investigated for the first time. Highly luminescent CdSe/CdS core/shell nanocrystals in rod and spherical shapes were synthesised in organic solvent and transferred to aqueous solution using ligand exchange. The 3-mercaptopropionic acid coated nanorods and nanospheres were characterised using electron microscopy and UV-visible absorbance and luminescence spectrophotometry. A simple and rapid development of fresh to less than a week-old natural fingermarks from 4 donors (male and female) on non-porous surfaces including glass slides, aluminium foil and germanium disks using both CdSe/CdS core/shell nanorods and spherical dots was achieved, wherein nanorods demonstrated an enhanced development of ridge details in comparison to the spherical dots.
