A facile strategy for synthesis of nearly white light emitting mesoporous silica nanoparticles

A series of novel fluorescent mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) with a diameter of about 50 nm was fabricated by introducing a blue-light emitting Zn complex of 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole (BTZ) and an orange-red light dye (Rhodamine B). The bright nearly white emitting MSNs (RhB0.65–(BTZ)xZn@MSN) can be obtained by tuning the concentration and ratio of different fluorescent emitting centers (RhB and (BTZ)xZn). The sample of RhB0.65–(BTZ)xZn@MSN had a chromaticity coordinate of (0.33, 0.30) which is well within the white region of the chromaticity diagram. The obtained fluorescent MSNs still remained the good mesoporous structure and highly dispersibility in ethanol solution after functionalized with dyes. The prepared different fluorescent MSNs have a potential application feature in many field of biomedical drug delivery, cell labeling and optoelectronic devices.