Publication at First Faculty of Medicine |
2020
Abstract
The interaction between negatively charged all-inorganic silicon quantum dots (Si QDs) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) is studied. It is shown that a small difference in the size of Si QDs affects the structure of Si QD-BSA composites significantly.
When the diameter of Si QDs is 4 nm, a heterodimer (similar to 20 nm) composed of one Si QD and one BSA molecule is a preferable and stable structure. On the other hand, when the diameter is 7 nm, the size of the composites increases to similar to 50 nm.
The Si QD-BSA composites exhibit stable photoluminescence in the near-infrared range in phosphate-buffered saline.