Encapsulating Carbon Dots in Polymethyl Methacrylate Nanoparticles Toward Improved Solid-State Fluorescence Quantum Yield

Abstract

The quantum yields (QYs) of conventional carbon dot (CD)/polymer composites are always much lower than those of dilute CD solutions. Herein, we prepare a CD/polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) nanocomposite by encapsulating CDs in PMMA nanoparticles through the suspension polymerization of MMA nanodroplets. The QY of this CD/PMMA nanocomposite is much higher than that of the conventional CD/PMMA composite fabricated by directly blending the CDs with PMMA, and very close to that of the dilute CD solution, since the CDs of the nanocomposite are confined in the PMMA nanoparticles, weakening the aggregation caused quenching. This study provides a method to prepare CD/polymer solid-state fluorescent materials with higher QYs compared with the conventional CD/polymer composites prepared through direct blending.

Keywords: carbon dots, fluorescence, quantum yield, polymethyl methacrylate, nanocomposites