Nanoparticles: Quantum dots

This image is a human carcinoma cell. Quantum dots are shown in green attached to the cellular plasma membrane.

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Quantum dots - QDs are highly crystalline molecular sized semiconductor nanocrystals. These are made up of 100 –100 000 number of atoms.

Advantages:

  • Due to their reduced size, they have discrete electronic energy that gives rise to unique optical properties. They have rapidly emerged as a new class of fluorescent probes for biomolecular and cellular imaging.

Limitations:

  • QDs made up of cadmium (from cadmium chalcogenide-based quantum dots) or lead (from lead chalcogenide-based quantum dots) contain toxic components.

Toolbox

  1. Which of the following are engineered nanoparticles? (Check all that apply.)
    You answered:
    Correct answer: Gold nanoparticles; Quantum dots
    Sandblasting is an example of incidental nanoparticles and viruses are naturally occurring nanoparticles.
  1. Sonal Mazumder, Rajib Dey, M. K. Mitra, S. Mukherjee, and G. C. Das, “Review: Biofunctionalized Quantum Dots in Biology and Medicine,” Journal of Nanomaterials, vol. 2009, Article ID 815734, 17 pages, 2009. doi:10.1155/2009/815734
  2. Image1: Andrew M. Smith, Ph.D., and Hong Yi, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute Image 2: NANO.gov
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