In Situ Generated Silver Nanodot Förster Resonance Energy Transfer Pair Reveals Nanocage Sizes
 
Yanlu Zhao, Sungmoon Choi, and Junhua Yu. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 2020, 11, 6867−6872
 
   Nanometer-sized cages are notly important in many biological activities of macromolecules but also in controlled nanomaterial synthesis and application. Deciphering the structure and function of nanocages is essential in understanding how the confined and finely-tuned nanostructure assists and catalyzes reactions. The size of the nanocage is the fundamental parameter describing the functionality of the nanocage. The external size of the nanocage container is easily obtained by various analytical methods such as transmis-sion electron microscopy (TEM) and dynamic light scattering (DLS), but it is difficult to illustrate a clear picture of the interior of the nanocage.
   Reverse micelles (Triton X-100/1-hexanol/cyclohexane/water) were used as a model. Silver nanodot FRET (Förster resonance energy transfer) pairs were generated in situ from a single silver nanodot species, and were applied to clarify the size variation of the water nanocage in nonionic surfactant Triton X-100-based reverse micelles.
   The diameter of the water nanocage measured with the above approach is consistent with that obtained by cryo-TEM, demonstrating that the FRET measurement of silver nanodots can be a fast and accurate tool to detect nanocage dimensions.
   This work was selected as the FEATURED RESEARCHES by the ACS Insights KOREA (https://app.acspubs.org/e/es?s=1913652004&e=1104559&elqTrackId=C8837ECFFEB0CF91F69B94594434E043&elq=4783f1202c854e228e8d697a1ea89159&elqaid=14204&elqat=1; 나노주머니 크기를 나타내는 현장 생성된 은 나노도트 Förster 공진 에너지 전달 페어).

Figure. With reverse micelles as a model, the nanocage size was accurately detected by Förster resonance energy transfer of in situ generated luminescent silver nanodot pairs.

Reference: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.0c01950