Nanocrystals are increasingly used in high-tech applications and consumer products, but water-stable variants for life science and healthcare applications have production bottlenecks owing to complex syntheses. Now, water-stable nanocrystals are made in a single step by replacing ‘oily’ reagents with oxygen-rich alkoxy ligands and solvents, endowing the nanocrystals with broad solvent dispersibility.
Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access through your institution
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Learn more
Buy this article
Purchase on SpringerLink
Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Additional access options:
Log in
Learn about institutional subscriptions
Read our FAQs
Contact customer support
Fig. 1: Comparison of polar alkoxy reagents (ligands and solvents) and traditional nanocrystal synthesis reagents based primarily on oily alkanes.
References
Murray, C. B., Norris, D. J. & Bawendi, M. G. Synthesis and characterization of nearly monodisperse CdE (E = sulfur, selenium, tellurium) semiconductor nanocrystallites. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 115, 8706–8715 (1993). This paper reports an early synthesis of compound nanocrystals in high-temperature nonpolar aliphatic solvents, which led to homogeneous nanocrystals with diverse compositions and structures.
CASGoogle Scholar
Chan, W. C. & Nie, S. Quantum dot bioconjugates for ultrasensitive nonisotopic detection. Science 281, 2016–2018 (1998). This paper reports a widely used ligand-exchange method to synthesize biologically friendly nanocrystals originally prepared in oil-based solvents.
CASPubMedGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. M. & Nie, S. Nanocrystal synthesis in an amphibious bath: spontaneous generation of hydrophilic and hydrophobic surface coatings. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 47, 9916–9921 (2008). This paper reports the synthesis of nanocrystals in OEG-based solvents, using an amphiphilic ligand to facilitate dispersion in aqueous solvents after synthesis due to micellaren capsulation.
CASGoogle Scholar
Turo, M. J. & Macdonald, J. E. Crystal-bound vs surface-bound thiols on nanocrystals. ACS Nano 8, 10205–10213 (2014). This paper reports the stability of Cu2S nanocrystals synthesized at high temperatures using alkanethiols that are bound as part of the crystal lattice whereas nanocrystals exchanged with thiols at lower temperatures are less stable owing to weaker modes of ligand binding.
CASPubMedGoogle Scholar
Download references
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This is a summary of: Sarkar, S. et al. Nanocrystal synthesis with alkoxy reagents for dispersion in polar and non-polar solvents. Nat. Synth. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00764-0 (2025).
Rights and permissions
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark
Cite this article
Water-stable nanocrystals in a single step. Nat. Synth (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00768-w
Download citation
Published:26 March 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s44160-025-00768-w
Share this article
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Get shareable link
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Copy to clipboard
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative