Development of chiral nanoparticles

Abstract

Symmetry and chirality are common occurrences in the natural world. Chiral compounds are extremely important in chemistry, biology and medicine. Chirality has also been envisaged to play an important role in nanotechnology. Most of the research in this field was focused on chiral organic and metallorganic molecules and their supramolecular structures. However, the area of chiral inorganic nanoparticles is currently in the very early stage of its development. There are only a limited number of publications on the preparation of chiral metal nanoparticles. Meanwhile, similar chiral nano-systems based on quantum dots (QDs) have not yet been reported at all. Quantum dots (QDs) are fluorescent semiconductor (e.g. II-VI) nanocrystals, which unlike metal nanoparticles have a strong characteristic spectral emission. This emission is tunable to a desired energy by selecting variable particle size, size distribution and composition o f the nanocrystals. QDs have recently attracted enormous interest due to their unique photophysical properties and range of potential applications in photonics and biochemistry as light emitting devices, fluorescent sensors and bioassays.