TAILORED CARBON NANODOTS: SHINING LIGHT ON THEIR SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATIONS

The great developments made in nanotechnology and in advanced material synthetic methods have enabled a variety of members to join the carbon nanomaterial party and carbon nanodots are the newcomers. After their accidentally finding, such small carbon nanoparticles have attracted promptly the interest of alert and curious scientists. They possess even more intriguing properties compared to other carbon nanomaterials and with their fascinating photoluminescence are attracting considerable attention as new-generation luminescent materials. These nanoparticles are characterized by their discrete and quasi-spherical shape, size below 10 nm and owing to their inexpensive and safe nature CNDs represent a promising alternative to semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), generally considered to be supreme luminescent materials. The aim of this thesis was to develop competitive synthetic methods for tailored CNDs and to investigate their role in various application fields. In the first part of the thesis it is presented a simple bottom-up method for high-quality nitrogen-doped CNDs (NCNDs) without the need of sophisticated equipment and/or additional surface passivation. Then, their use in electrochemiluminescence (ECL) technology is investigated, showing their potentiality as user-friendly alternative to the conventional co-reactant species and as active component of ECL self-enhanced platform. Later on, NCNDs were employed in novel photofunctional hybrids and supramolecular gels. Finally, CNDs with tailored and novel properties (such as multicolored or chiral CNDs) through their rational design are presented.