Water-soluble semiconductor nanocrystals cap exchanged with metalated ligands.

We report a novel method for cap exchange of emissive semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) using thiol functional ligands metalated with zinc. Utilizing this method, the NCs can be several times brighter and much more resistant to precipitation compared to control samples. This method has been applied using a variety of caps such as dihydrolipoic acid and cysteine. Our data suggest that the improved properties of the metalated cap exchanged NCs are due to a ligand metathesis process occurring at the NC surface where the zinc complex reacts with NC surface bound ligands, gently removing them and replacing them with another cap. Overall, the use of metalated ligands helps resolve many long-standing issues concerning the application of small cap exchanged NCs for biological imaging.