Date of Award
August 2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Chemistry
Committee Member
Jason D McNeill
Committee Member
Dvora Perahia
Committee Member
Leah B Casabianca
Committee Member
Carlos D Garcia
Abstract
Utilization of conjugated polymer nanoparticles (CPNs) as fluorescent probes has attracted lots of scientific interest due to their exceptional brightness and photostability, particularly there has been considerable interest in developing a photoswitchable nanoparticle based on CPNs. Previous efforts by other groups of researchers, either did not exhibit single-step switching or suffer from poor on/off contrast because of incomplete quenching of the nanoparticle fluorescence. In this work, superresolution imaging via controlled reversible generation and recombination of hole polarons as fluorescence quenchers inside CPNs has been demonstrated resulting in a localization precision of ~0.6nm, which is about 4 times better than the typical resolution achieved. We demonstrated a novel polydot nanoparticle made of PCBM doped PFBT with photoswitching properties for super resolution microscopy. Another efforts were made to continue improving photoswitching polydots, including the development of PCBM doped MEH-CNPPV photoswitches trying to achieve better colloidal stability and narrower size distributions, also electric field modulation studies were performed on the nanoparticles and new protocols to produce DNA wrapped polydots were developed in this work, attempting to extend the scope of the applications of CPNs in biosensors, biological imaging and to demonstrate improved super resolution imaging.
Recommended Citation
Novoa Delgado, Muskendol, "Development of Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles for Applications in Superresolution Imaging and Sensors" (2021). All Theses. 3585.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_theses/3585