Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kohle, Ferdinand F. E.
• Hinckley, Joshua A.
• Li, Songying
• Dhawan, Nikhil
• Katt, William P.
• Erstling, Jacob A.
• Werner‐Zwanziger, Ulrike
• Zwanziger, Josef
• Cerione, Richard A.
• Wiesner, Ulrich B.

Titel

Amorphous Quantum Nanomaterials

Ist Teil von

• Advanced materials (Weinheim), 2019-02, Vol.31 (5), p.e1806993-n/a

Ort / Verlag

Germany: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Wiley Online Library All Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In quantum materials, macroscopic behavior is governed in nontrivial ways by quantum phenomena. This is usually achieved by exquisite control over atomic positions in crystalline solids. Here, it is demonstrated that the use of disordered glassy materials provides unique opportunities to tailor quantum material properties. By borrowing ideas from single‐molecule spectroscopy, single delocalized π‐electron dye systems are isolated in relatively rigid ultrasmall (<10 nm diameter) amorphous silica nanoparticles. It is demonstrated that chemically tuning the local amorphous silica environment around the dye over a range of compositions enables exquisite control over dye quantum behavior, leading to efficient probes for photodynamic therapy (PDT) and stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM). The results suggest that efficient fine‐tuning of light‐induced quantum behavior mediated via effects like spin‐orbit coupling can be effectively achieved by systematically varying averaged local environments in glassy amorphous materials as opposed to tailoring well‐defined neighboring atomic lattice positions in crystalline solids. The resulting nanoprobes exhibit features proven to enable clinical translation. Chemically tuning the local amorphous silica environment in dye‐encapsulating nanoparticles (Cornell dots) over a range of compositions, in contrast to lattice parameters or symmetry of crystalline solids, can be used to exquisitely control the quantum behavior of dye π‐electron systems, leading to ultraefficient probes for photodynamic therapy and super‐resolution optical microscopy.