Carbon Goes Glam: Treated carbon dots fluoresce

Chemists have fashioned tiny dots of carbon that glow in response to light. The nanoparticles may find uses in biological imaging as alternatives to quantum dots, fluorescent spheres of semiconductors.

A GLIMMER OF COLOR. Stoppered solutions of nanoscale carbon dots with chemically altered surfaces fluoresce in the colors of the focused patches of light that are stimulating them.