Room-temperature synthesis of yellow-emitting fluorescent silicon nanoparticles for sensitive and selective determination of crystal violet in fish tissues

Silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) have attracted increasing attentions due to their unique properties and related applications. However, previously reported SiNPs generally showed emission band only in the blue- or green-light regions, which limited their applications in biochemical samples. So far, synthesis of longer wavelength emissive SiNPs remains a challenge. In this paper, the yellow-emitting fluorescent SiNPs were prepared via a facile room temperature procedure, which avoided heating and pressurizing operation, multistep and time-consuming post-modified procedures. The obtained SiNPs displayed excellent water-solubility, pH-stability, salt-tolerance, and photo-stability. Significantly, the fluorescence of SiNPs could be remarkably quenched by crystal violet (CV) via synergistic effect of inner filter effect (IFE) and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Based on this phenomenon, a method for the determination of CV was established. Under the optimum conditions, the method showed a wide linearity range from 0.075 to 15.0 μg/mL with a limit of detection of 25 ng/mL. Furthermore, the method was successfully applied to the analysis of CV in fish tissues samples.