A mechanism for excitation-dependent emission from carbon nanodots

Abstract

Carbon nanodots (CDs) synthesized via the microwave pyrolysis approach are monodisperse with the nano-size distribution. The CDs show color tunability simply by changing the excitation wavelength. Also, the emission intensity varies with varying different microwave response times. Detail characterizations indicate that the carbon defects that lead to heterogeneous emission levels are responsible for the emission properties of the CDs.