Recent Advances in Luminescent Carbon Dots

Since the discovery of their benign (non-toxic) and excellent fluorescent properties, carbon dots (or C-dots) have attracted extensive attentions and presented a clear demonstration of great potential in bioanalytical applications. This intrinsic and somewhat exceptional nontoxic property of C-dots makes them potential alternatives to the conventional semiconductor quantum dots counterpart containing heavy metals that pose serious health and environmental concerns. After a brief discussion of their earlier and current synthetic strategies, a comprehensive summary of the synthetic routes together with their corresponding advantages and disadvantages is reviewed. Functional surface manipulations of Cdots aiming at improving quantum yield and stability for more excellent fluorescent sensing are summarized. This paper provides a concise review of recent significant advances in C-dots, focusing on the synthesis, the optical properties and the analytical applications.