Fast preparation of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles from β-cyclodextrin via precursor design treatment

In this paper, we report a fast and efficient strategy for the preparation of high-quality fluorescent carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) with high yield. Precursor design method was applied and a membrane structured carbon precursor which proved to be the key factor for the synthesis process was obtained by calcining β-cyclodextrin in air. As-synthesized CNPs exhibited well-controlled morphology, uniform size of 3.47±0.31 nm and excellent optical properties. Besides, CNPs showed low toxicity and was successfully used as fluorescent probes for the direct bio-labeling and imaging of HepG2 cells without any further surface modifications. Our strategy opens up enormous opportunities to produce high-quality CNPs with high yields for broad biological applications.