Tailoring the Ligand Shell

The possible use of fluorescent quantum dots as labels in biological environments has made it necessary to devise ways to transfer semiconductor nanocrystals from organic to aqueous medium. Furthermore, the new layer of 

Recently, fluorous chemistry has been used to solubilize and phase-transfer nanocrystals of metals (Au) and chalcogenides (CdS) as well as inorganic nanorods (ZnO) [551]. Here, a fluorous label (e.g. fluorinated alkane thiol) is attached to the nanostructures which are then readily extracted by a fluorocarbon from aquous or hydrocarbon solutions, due to fluorine-fluorine interaction. This method not only enables the purification of the nanostructures, but also helps one to study them in the most-nonpolar medium possible, the refractive index of fluorocarbon being around 1.2. 

TEM image of a triangular CdS nanocrystal. The corresponding power spectrum is in (c). (reproduced with permission from [79, 80]). 

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