Hybrid nanomaterials can exhibit synergistic effects and function in multiple ways. We develop hybrid nanostructures that consist of nanocrystals encapsulated by metal-organic frameworks. Due to their unique optical properties such as surface plasmon resonance and size-tunable photoluminescence, gold nanoparticles and quantum dots (QDs) are used as the core components. Zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) are introduced to encapsulate these nanocrystal cores in the aqueous phase. For the gold nanoparticle core, anisotropic shapes such as nanorods can be encapsulated by ZIFs. Further surface modification with cysteamine allows finite self-assembly of each core around 20 nanoparticles, which retains hots spots led by the coupling of surface plasmons. Ligand concentration, encapsulation time, and surfactant concentration are varied to understand the encapsulation mechanism for the self-assembly nanorod core. The gold-ZIF hybrid nanostructure shows enhanced sensing capacity for 4-nitrobenzenethiol. In addition, we examine the ligand exchange process, surfactant concentration, and nanocrystal shape on the degree of encapsulation of QDs by ZIFs.

Development of MOF-encapsulated hybrid nanostructures for molecular sensing

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ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.