Recent Developments and Applications of Nanodiamonds as Versatile Bioimaging Agents

Abstract

The first demonstration of nanodiamonds (NDs) for cellular fluorescence imaging was reported in 2005. It has since then aroused considerable interest among scientists working in the field of diamond and related materials. A large number of researches have been conducted, aimed to develop this novel nanomaterial as diagnostic, imaging, and therapeutic agents in biomedicine. There have been more than 20 review articles and book chapters published on this topic in the past 8 years. With the recent development of nanotechnologies and photonics, the ND-based bioimaging has been taken to a new level. In this topic review, we will focus our attention on the recent advances in the development of NDs as versatile bioimaging agents for both in vitro and in vivo applications. Emerging new technologies including multiphoton excitation imaging, superresolution imaging, optically detected magnetic resonance imaging, cathodoluminescence imaging, and photoacoustic imaging are discussed. Keywords

In vitro cytotoxicity assessment of nanodiamond particles and their osteogenic potential

“…Owing to their wear resistance and tissue regenerative functions in vitro , nDP are used to modify medical biomaterials, creating surfaces with outstanding properties without compromising the overall structure of the materials . This has greatly enhanced the wear resistance and prevented leaching of metallic ions from implants into the surroundings .…”

“…11,12 Owing to their wear resistance and tissue regenerative functions in vitro, nDP are used to modify medical biomaterials, creating surfaces with outstanding properties without compromising the overall structure of the materials. 10,[13][14][15][16] This has greatly enhanced the wear resistance and prevented leaching of metallic ions from implants into the surroundings. 13,17 In regenerative medicine, nDP have been utilized as substrates for neuronal growth, 18,19 as well as surface treatments in scaffolds used in bone regeneration to enhance their mechanical properties.…”

A phantom study of terahertz spectroscopy and imaging of micro- and nano-diamonds and nano-onions as contrast agents for breast cancer

“…While a single layer of microdiamonds in PDMS does not fully model the distributed particles that would be present in a biomedical application, it is still useful to observe the THz signal interaction with the particles. Additional details on the fabrication of particles and sample preparation were previously reported in other works [32],[37],[39],[53]. …”

Anti-Stokes excitation of optically active point defects in semiconductor materials

“…We focus on three kinds of semiconductor materials that attract much interest in the area of traditional semiconductor research and the emergent exploration of quantum technologies. Two of them are diamond [65] and silicon carbide [66], which can be used in the form of bulk materials [22,27], thin films [67,68] and nanoparticles [69][70][71] in scientific research and industrial applications. The last one is h-BN [72], which is usually synthesized to be a two-dimensional material in applications [73,74].…”

“…In figure 2, we show the configuration diagrams of some typical point defects in semiconductors, which have been investigated under the anti-Stokes excitation in the works published in the recent two decades, including the H3 [102], 5 SiV [98], NV [70], and GeV centers in diamond [70], 6 the V2 type V Si (occupying the k site of the 4H-SiC lattice, which will be discussed in detail beneath) in 4H-SiC [45], and the V B vacancy in h-BN [55].…”