Microwave-assisted synthesis of sulfur-doped carbon quantum dots and their application in logic gate operations

In this work, sulfur-doped carbon quantum dots (GSH/L-CyS CQDs) were fabricated using a facile one-step microwave method with reduced glutathione (GSH) and L-cysteine (L-CyS) as the precursors for carbon and sulfur, respectively. The prepared GSH/L-CyS CQDs show high fluorescence signals at 451 nm upon excitation at 375 nm and can selectively detect Co^2 + and Ni²⁺ among various anions and cations. In combination with citric acid (CA), a metal ion masking agent for Ni²⁺, the IMPLICATION logic gate and NOR logic gate can be operated by controlling different fluorescence inputs and outputs. This research offers a promising avenue for the design and construction of advanced logic gate systems based on CQDs, which may find potential applications in fields such as sensing, computing, and information processing.