Armstong Teasdale LLP
Photoligation of an amphiphilic polymer with mixed coordination provides compact and reactive quantum dots
The disclosure is directed to multi-coordinating polymers as ligands that combine two distinct metal-chelating groups, lipoic acid and imidazole, for the surface functionalization of QDs. These ligands combine the benefits of thiol and imidazole coordination to reduce issues of thiol oxidation and weak binding affinity of imidazole. The ligand design relies on the introduction of controllable numbers of lipoic acid and histamine anchors, along with hydrophilic moieties and reactive functionalities, onto a poly(isobutylene-alt-maleic anhydride) chain via a one-step nucleophilic addition reaction. We further demonstrate that this design is fully compatible with a novel and mild photoligation strategy to promote the in-situ ligand exchange and phase transfer of hydrophobic QDs to aqueous media under borohydride-free conditions. Ligation with these polymers provides highly fluorescent QDs that exhibit great long-term colloidal stability over a wide range of conditions.
The Florida State University Research Foundation, Inc.
G C C C C C G
G01N C09D C09D C09D C08F C08G G01N
inventional inventional inventional additional inventional inventional inventional
Goutam Wentao Hedi
Palui Wang Mattoussi