Graphene Quantum Dots: Emerging Carbon Nanomaterials

Abstract

Among the various carbon nanostructures, the graphene quantum dots represent an emerging 0D platform with very interesting properties for biological application. More specifically they are properly water-soluble, they can be decorated exploiting different chemical approaches and they possess intrinsic characteristics of fluorescence. Herein, we report a new top-down strategy to prepare these structures, that has been recently explored and allows an almost quantitative conversion of the carbon source, and some preliminary biological results.