Unlike
quantum dots, photophysical properties of carbon dots (CDs)
are not strongly correlated with particle size. The origin of CD photoluminescence
has been related to sp2 domain size and the abundance of
oxidized surface defects. However, direct imaging of surface-accessible
spatially localized oxidized defects is still lacking. In this work,
solvothermal-synthesized CDs are fractionated into different colors
by polarity-based chromatography. We then study the mechanism of CD
fluorescence by directly imaging individual CDs with subparticle resolution
by scanning tunneling microscopy. Density of states imaging of CDs
reveals that the graphitic core has a large bandgap that is inconsistent
with observed fluorescence wavelength, whereas localized defects have
smaller electronic gaps for both red-emitting dots (rCDs) and blue-emitting
dots (bCDs). For individual bCDs within our laser tuning range, we
directly image optically active surface defects (ca. 1–3 nm in size) and their bandgaps, which agree with the
emission wavelength of the ensemble from which the bCDs were taken.
We find that the emissive defects are not necessarily the ones with
the smallest gap, consistent with quantum yields less than unity (0.1–0.26).
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and pH-dependent fluorescence titration
show that oxygen-containing surface-accessible protonatable functional
groups (e.g., phenolic −OH, −COOH) define the chemical
identity of the defects. This observation explains why we detect neither
long-lived optical excitation of the core nor a correlation between
size and emission wavelength. Instead, control over the number of
oxygen-containing defects defines the emission wavelength, with more
oxidized defects at the surface producing redder emission wavelengths.