Production and characterization of water soluble CdSeTe based core/shell nanocrystals and their applications in bioimaging

Abstract

In recent years, nanotechnology has become one of the most intensively studied fields. At the nanometer scale, materials have unique electrical, optical, magnetic and chemical properties. They can be used for a wide variety of applications such as electrooptical devices, tagging and medical applications. The goal of this study was to produce water-dispersible alloyed CdSexTe1-x semiconductor nanocrystals, which are suitable to interact with biomolecules. CdSexTe1-x nanocrystals were synthesized by a single step aqueous synthesis method. Monodisperse, CdSexTe1-x nanocrystals with zinc blende structure were obtained in water. Synthesized nanocrystals emit in the range from 528 nm to 620 nm. CdSexTe1-x nanocrystals have 17% photoluminescence quantum yield, after the CdS shell coating the photoluminescence quantum yield increased up to 22%. MTT test and Trypan Blue tests were used to evaluate the toxicity of CdSexTe1-x nanocrystals. MTT measurements reveal that the MCF7 cancer cells are not affected by the nanocrystals at any dosage and exposure condition, but lethal effects are determined at the concentration of 1.0ug/ml for the PC3 cells. The BEAS 2B cells are very sensitive to the nanocrystals and do not proliferate at concentration of 0.5ug/ml. Confocal microscopy studies show that the nanocrystals has ability to penetrate to the cytoplasm of cells.