Electron tomography as a novel tool for an analysis of excited energy transfer reaction in organic-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials

摘要

Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET)1 is non-radiative excited energy transfer process from excited donors to lower energy acceptors via long range dipole-dipole interactions. The reaction rate constant kFRET is inversely proportional to the sixth power of the donor-acceptor distance. In this work, we prepared self-assemblies composed of anionic clay nanosheets in water and quantum dots (QDs) decorated with cationic thiols via Coulombic interaction. FRET between the donor and acceptor QDs (QDs(D), QDs(A)) was investigated from the real-space distance between donors and acceptors for the first time using electron tomography2 while FRET is generally studied by spectroscopic techniques.