Simultaneous imaging and treatment of infections remains a major challenge, with most current approaches being effective against only one specific group of bacteria or not being useful for diagnosis. Here we develop multifunctional nanoagents that can potentially be used for imaging and treatment of infections caused by diverse bacterial pathogens. The nanoagents are made of fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) functionalized with a glucose polymer (e.g., poly[4-O-(α-D-glucopyranosyl)-D-glucopyranose]) and loaded with chlorin e6 (Ce6). They are rapidly internalized into Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria by a mechanism dependent on an ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter pathway. The nanoagents can be used for imaging bacteria by tracking the green fluorescence of SiNPs and the red fluorescence of Ce6, allowing in vivo detection of as few as 10 5 colony-forming units. The nanoagents exhibit in vivo photodynamic antibacterial efficiencies of 98% against Staphylococcus aureus and 96% against Pseudomonas aeruginosa under 660 nm irradiation.

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Fluorescent silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs), as the most important zero-dimensional silicon nanostructures, hold high promise for long-awaited silicon-based optic applications. There currently remain major challenges for the green, inexpensive, and mass production of fluorescent SiNPs, resulting in difficulties in sufficiently exploiting the properties of these remarkable materials. Here, we show that fluorescent small-sized (∼3.8 nm) SiNPs can be produced through biomimetic synthesis in rapid (10 min), low-cost, and environmentally benign manners. The as-prepared SiNPs simultaneously feature bright fluorescence (quantum yield (QY), ∼15-20%), narrow emission spectral width (full width at half-maximum (fwhm), ∼30 nm), and nontoxicity, making them as high-quality fluorescent probes for biological imaging in vitro and in vivo.

We herein report a kind of one-dimensional biocompatible fluorescent silicon nanorods (SiNRs) with tunable lengths ranging ∼100-250 nm, which can be facilely prepared through one-pot microwave synthesis. In addition to the strong fluorescence (quantum yield value: ∼15%) and negligible toxicity, the resultant SiNRs exhibit excitation wavelength-dependent photoluminescence whose maximum emission wavelength ranges from ∼450 to ∼600 nm under serial excitation wavelengths from 390 to 560 nm, providing feasibility for multicolor biological imaging. More significantly, the SiNRs are ultrahighly photostable, preserving strong and nearly unchanged fluorescence under 400 min high-power UV irradiation, which is in sharp contrast to severe fluorescence quenching of organic dyes (e.g., FITC) or II-VI quantum dots (QDs) (e.g., CdTe QDs and CdSe/ZnS QDs) within 15 or 160 min UV treatment under the same experiment conditions, respectively. Taking advantage of these attractive merits, we further exploit the SiNRs as a novel type of color converters for the construction of white light-emitting diodes (LED), which is the first proof-of-concept demonstration of LED device fabricated using the one-dimensional fluorescent silicon nanostructures.

Herein, we present the first example of a silicon nanoshuttle-based security ink simultaneously featuring attractive optical and magnetic properties, suitable for fluorescent and magnetic anti-counterfeiting and encryption. Significantly, the information can be dual-encrypted through multi-color fluorescence and longitudinal (T)/transverse (T) relaxation contrast by using the silicon nanoshuttle-based security ink. We further demonstrate the feasibility of this high-performance ink for practical application in banknote anti-counterfeiting.

In this paper, we investigated the dielectric properties of (In + Nb) co-doped rutile TiO2 single crystal and polycrystalline ceramics. Both of them showed colossal, up to 104, dielectric permittivity at room temperature. The single crystal sample showed one dielectric relaxation process with a large dielectric loss. The voltage-dependence of dielectric permittivity and the impedance spectrum suggest that the high dielectric permittivity of single crystal originated from the surface barrier layer capacitor (SBLC). The impedance spectroscopy at different temperature confirmed that the (In + Nb) co-doped rutile TiO2 polycrystalline ceramic had semiconductor grains and insulating grain boundaries, and that the activation energies were calculated to be 0.052 eV and 0.35 eV for grain and grain boundary, respectively. The dielectric behavior and impedance spectrum of the polycrystalline ceramic sample indicated that the internal barrier layer capacitor (IBLC) mode made a major contribution to the high ceramic dielectric permittivity, instead of the electron-pinned defect-dipoles.

It is of essential importance to precisely probe mercury(II) (Hg(2+)) ions for environment-protection analysis and detection. To date, there still remain major challenges for accurate, specific, and reliable detection of Hg(2+) ions at subppt level. We herein employ gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) decorated silicon nanowire array (SiNWAr) as active surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates to construct a high-performance sensing platform assisted by DNA technology, enabling ultrasensitive detection of trace Hg(2+) in ∼64 min and with low sample consumption (∼30 μL). Typically, strong SERS signals could be detected when the single-stranded DNA structure converts to the hairpin structure in the presence of Hg(2+) ions, due to the formation of thymine (T)-Hg(2+)-T. As a result, Hg(2+) ions with a low concentration of 1 pM (0.2 ppt) can be readily discriminated, much lower than those (∼nM) reported for conventional analytical strategies. Water samples spiked with various Hg(2+) concentrations are further tested, exhibiting a good linear relationship between the normalized Raman intensities and the logarithmic concentrations of Hg(2+) ranging from 1 pM to 100 nM, with a correlation coefficient of R(2) = 0.998. In addition, such SERS sensor features excellent selectivity, facilely distinguishing Hg(2+) ions from various interfering substances. Moreover, this presented SERS sensor possesses good recyclability, preserving adaptable reproducibility during 5-time cyclic detection of Hg(2+). Furthermore, unknown Hg(2+) concentration in river water can be readily determined through our sensing strategy in accurate and reliable manners, with the RSD value of ∼9%.

Biochemical analysis in reliable, low-toxicity, and real-time manners are essentially important for exploring and unraveling biological events and related mechanisms. Silicon nanomaterial-based sensors and probes have potentiality to satisfy the above-mentioned requirements. Herein, we present an overview of the recent significant improvement in large-scale and facile synthesis of high-quality silicon nanomaterials and the research progress of biosensing and bioimaging analysis based on silicon nanomaterials. We especially illustrate the advanced applications of silicon nanomaterials in the field of ultrasensitive biomolecular detection and dynamic biological imaging analysis, with a focus on real-time and long-term detection. In the final section of this review, we discuss the major challenges and promising development in this domain.