Synthesis of Luminescent N‐Doped Carbon Dots by Hydrothermal Treatment.

This article describes a simple synthesis of two types of carbon dots (CDs) from glucose (g‐CDs) and citric acid (ca‐CDs) using the hydrothermal treatment method. At the synthesis the water solution of ammonia was used for doping of the g‐CDs and ca‐CDs by N for improving their electronic and transport properties. These synthesized CDs consist mostly of 1–4 layers having a uniform size of about 14 nm, and the nitrogen atoms were successfully introduced into the lattice of CDs. The resulting CDs have a crystalline structure with functional groups on the surface and exhibit bright photoluminescence in the violet–blue region of the spectrum. The g‐CDs exhibit an excitation‐dependent blue emission, in the case of ca‐CDs their emission dependence on excitation is not clearly observed. The obtained CDs have a number of advantages and can be widely used for the creation of photodetectors, detectors for chemical elements and various optoelectronic applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]