Room temperature and solvothermal green synthesis of self passivated carbon quantum dots

Highly fluorescent, self passivated carbon quantum dots (CQDs) have been synthesized using PEG-200 at room temperature for the first time followed by solvothermal modification to increase the quantum yield of these nano carbons. At elevated temperature and pressure good surface passivation has been observed. No sophisticated instrument nor passivating agent is required to fabricate these CQDs, making the procedure unique and novel with respect to all the existing protocols. Solvothermally synthesized carbon quantum dots (ST-CQDs) exhibited minimum toxicity and can be used easily for bioimaging.