Colloidal Carbon Quantum Dots for Anticounterfeiting

More attentions have been paid for developing anti-counterfeiting technologies to fight the endless emergence of fake and inferior products.Compared with inorganic quantum dots, colloidal carbon dots (C-dots) are emerging fluorescent nanomaterials, which have been used for various types of optical and electrical applications, because they have composition-dependent optical properties, including high quantum yield, tunable absorption/emission spectra and good chemical-/photo-stability.In this minireview, we summarized and updated the most recent research works for the use of colloidal C-dots for optical anticounterfeiting applications.We focus on the fluorescent, persistent luminescence and phosphorescent C-dots.In the end, we enclosed this minireview with our owner perspectives on the challenges of C-dots based anticounterfeiting.