Remarkable water-soluble ZnO nanocrystals: from ‘click’ functionalization to a supramolecular aggregation enhanced emission phenomenon

Agnieszka Grala, Małgorzata Wolska-Pietkiewicz, Zbigniew Wróbel, Tomasz Ratajczyk, Joanna Kuncewicz, Janusz Lewiński

Index: 10.1039/C7QM00586E

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Abstract

The preparation of ZnO nanocrystals with enhanced stability and photoluminescence intensity in an aqueous environment is a challenging task. We report on an one-pot two-step organometallic approach for the synthesis of processable alkyne-functionalized quantum-sized ZnO crystals and their efficient phase transfer protocol from an organic solvent to an aqueous environment involving the surface modification by the Cu-mediated azide–alkyne cycloaddition. Remarkably, the water-soluble NCs not only maintain the photoluminescence properties after the post-synthetic surface modification, but also exhibit the unprecedented (for II–VI semiconductor nanocrystals) aggregation enhanced emission phenomenon.