Thiolation and PEGylation of silicon carbide nanoparticle

TL;DR

This paper develops thiol and PEGylation surface modifications on silicon carbide nanoparticles, enabling their use as bioinert fluorescent probes and potential quantum sensors for biotechnological applications.

Contribution

Introduces a method for thiol termination and PEGylation of SiC nanoparticles, demonstrating their reactivity, protection against oxidation, and suitability as bioinert fluorescent probes.

Findings

Successful surface modification with thiol groups confirmed by spectroscopy.

Conjugation with PEG molecules demonstrated reactivity and protection against oxidation.

Potential application as bioinert fluorescent probes and quantum sensors.

Abstract

In this study, we implement thiol termination on the surface of few-nanometer-sized silicon carbide (SiC) nanoparticles (NPs) to enable further applications, such as fluorescent biomarkers. Various spectroscopic techniques are employed to monitor the effectiveness of the surface treatment. A thiol-Michael addition reaction is performed by conjugating 4-arm PEGmaleimide molecules to the thiol groups of SiC NPs, further demonstrating the reactivity of thiol-terminated SiC NPs, which also acts as a protection layer against oxidation. These fluorescent thiolated SiC NPs, both with and without conjugated molecules, are directly applicable as bioinert probes. Since SiC NPs can potentially host room-temperature fluorescent defect quantum bits, our results are an important step to realize a bioinert, ultrasmall quantum sensor bioagents, which may open new avenues in biotechnology.