Research Article
Magneto-Fluorescent Core-Shell Supernanoparticles
Ou Chen, Lars Riedemann, Fred Etoc, Hendrik Herrmann, Mathieu Coppey, Mariya Barch, Christian T. Farrar, Jing Zhao, Oliver T. Bruns, He Wei, Peng Guo, Jian Cui, Russ Jensen, Yue Chen, Daniel K. Harris, Jose M. Cordero, Zhongwu Wang, Alan Jasanoff, Dai Fukumura, Rudolph Reimer, Maxime Dahan, Rakesh K. Jain, Moungi G. Bawendi
Published:
December 06, 2014
DOI:
10.1038/ncomms6093
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Abstract
Magneto-fluorescent particles have been recognized as an emerging class of materials that exhibit great potential in advanced applications. However, synthesizing such magneto-fluorescent nanomaterials that simultaneously exhibit uniform and tunable sizes, high magnetic content loading, maximized fluorophore coverage at the surface, and a versatile surface functionality has proven challenging. Here we report a simple approach for co-assembling magnetic nanoparticles with fluorescent quantum dots to form colloidal magneto-fluorescent supernanoparticles. Importantly, these supernanoparticles exhibit a superstructure consisting of a close packed magnetic nanoparticle “core” which is fully surrounded by a “shell” of fluorescent quantum dots. A thin layer of silica-coating provides high colloidal stability and biocompatiblity and a versatile surface functionality. We demonstrate that after surface pegylation, these silica-coated magneto-fluorescent supernanoparticles can be magnetically manipulated inside living cells while being optically tracked. Moreover, our silica-coated magneto-fluorescent supernanoparticles can also serve as an in vivo multi-photon and magnetic resonance dual-modal imaging probe.