Achieving the aqueous phosphorescence of carbon dots from solid state for dual-channel detection of dopamine

Room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) carbon dots (CDs) have obtained extensive attentions due to their unique optical properties and promising applications. Howbeit, a solid-state environment is generally required for most CDs to achieve the RTP emission, since the aqueous solutions could lead to the deactivation of triplet excitons of CDs, and thus quenching the phosphorescence. Herein, we synthesized the CDs with RTP characteristics by employing triethylenetetramine and phosphoric acid as the precursors, and introduced tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) to successfully enable their aqueous-phase phosphorescence of CDs. Leveraging the quenching effect of dopa-mine (DA) on both fluorescence and phosphorescence of CDs in aqueous, we consequently established a dual-channel detection based on the static quenching mechanism. This approach not only enabled one type of phosphorescent probe to perform the detection of DA in aqueous, but also definitely broadened the detection range during assaying DA, thereby raising an innovative strategy of determining the concentrations of DA.