Surface modification of carbon dots via peptide covalent conjugation

Abstract

Surface modification of carbon dots via covalent conjugation with a dipeptide resulted in a dramatic change in the fluorescence emission from green to red. The hydrophobic peptide units linked to the surface of the modified carbon dots helped them to aggregate by generating a nanodot-fabricated nanofibrous network. This nanofibrous network showed excellent electrical conductivity and photo-switching behavior, better than those of the non-aggregated dots.