Ultrasmall Metal Nanoclusters: Functionalization and Biomedical Applications
A special issue of Biosensors (ISSN 2079-6374).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2019) | Viewed by 6015
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In recent years, a sub-genre of noble metal nanoparticles with core sizes of less than 2 nm, also known as nanoclusters (NCs), have attracted substantial attraction because of their unique molecular like properties such as HOMO-LUMO transition, quantized charging, chirality, and photoluminescence. These unique properties, together with their low toxicity, ultra-fine size, and good biocompatibility, have made these NCs an ideal class of functional nanomaterials for applications in the biomedical field. With the advancement of their synthesis methods, which often reached atomic levels of precision, the cluster community has also witnessed a dramatic growth of research interest in the field of optical sensors. This is mainly driven by the ease of manipulation of the properties of these metal NCs by tailoring their structure and composition either during synthesis or post synthesis. Nevertheless, the optical properties of these NCs may change upon bioconjugation or due to the environment, leading to the development of more versatile sensing platform. Various analytes that can be detected by exploring the optical properties of NCs including toxic metal ions (e.g., Hg(II), Cu(II), Pb(II), etc.) , anions (S2-, CN-, etc.), small molecules (e.g., cysteine, hydrogen peroxide, etc.), biomarkers (e.g., thyroglobulin), and so on. In view of the increasing research interest in this topic, in this Special Issue of Biosensors, we invite articles related to the synthesis, characterization, and functionalization of metal NCs for the detection of biomolecules and toxic chemicals with potential applications in diagnosis and environmental monitoring. Review articles should emphasize detection mechanisms, especially for NC-based bio-sensing applications. Original research articles and reviews with potential relevance to NC-based biomedical applications (imaging and therapy) are also welcome.
Dr. Nirmal Goswami
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Metal nanocluster
- Gold nanocluster
- Silver nanocluster
- Copper nanocluster
- Alloy nanocluster
- Photoluminescence
- HOMO-LUMO transition
- Optical sensors
- Functional nanomaterial
- Biosensors
- Metal ion sensing
- FRET
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