On the nature of carbon nanodots photoluminescence from olive wastes

Este trabalho foi financiado pelo Concurso Anual para Projetos de Investigação, Desenvolvimento, Inovação e Criação Artística (IDI&CA) 2016 do Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa. Código de referência IPL/2016/NANOLIVE/ISELA great structural diversity of carbon nanodots (CNDs) have been obtained in the last ten years by a variety of methods, carbon sources, additives and/or passivating agents, and operation parameters. Not unexpectedly, many properties diverge owing to disparate structural features. The photoluminescence (PL) is one of them. A vast literature is already available on this topic, with findings that are somehow apparently contradictory. At least three possible origins of PL in CNDs have been identified: i) quantum confinement effects associated with the sp2 domains of the carbon core; ii) surface states lying in the edges of sp2 carbogenic core; iii) molecular states originating from molecular species embedded or covalently linked to the carbon matrix.