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Designing various inorganic nanomaterials that are cost effective, water soluble, optically photostable, highly fluorescent and biocompatible for bioimaging applications is a challenging task. Similar to semiconducting quantum dots (QDs), silicon QDs are another alternative and are highly fluorescent, but non-water soluble. Several surface modification strategies were adopted to make them water soluble. However, the photoluminescence of Si QDs was seriously quenched in the aqueous environment. In this report, highly luminescent, water-dispersible, blue- and green-emitting Si QDs were prepared with good photostability. In vitro studies in monocytes reveal that Si QDs exhibit good biocompatibility and excellent distribution throughout the cytoplasm region, along with the significant fraction translocated into the nucleus. The in vivo zebrafish studies also reveal that Si QDs can be evenly distributed in the yolk-sac region. Overall, our results demonstrate the applicability of water-soluble and highly fluorescent Si QDs as excellent in vitro and in vivo bioimaging probes.

In this study, we report a facile and green process to synthesize high-quality and few-layer graphene (FLG) derived from graphite via a liquid exfoliation process. The corresponding characterizations of FLG, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Raman spectroscopy, were carried out. The results of SEM show that the lateral size of as-synthesized FLG is 1–5 μm. The results of TEM and AFM indicate more than 80% of graphene layers is <10 layers. The most surprising thing is that D/G ratio of graphite and FLG are 0.15 and 0.19, respectively. The result of the similar D/G ratio demonstrates that little structural defects were created via the liquid exfoliation process. Electronic conductivity tests and resistance of composite film, in terms of different contents of graphite/polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) and FLG/PVDF, were carried out. Dramatically, the FLG/PVDF composite demonstrates superior performance compared to the graphite/PVDF composite at the same ratio. In addition, the post-sintering process plays an important role in improving electronic conductivity by 85%. The composition-optimized FLG/PVDF thin film exhibits 81.9 S·cm−1. These results indicate that the developed FLG/PVDF composite adhesives could be a potential candidate for conductive adhesive applications.