Novel approach for zinc oxide nanomaterials functionalization based on dry plasma processing

Zinc oxide is a wonderful material for bioimaging applications own to its wide range of properties^1,2 among which the photoluminescence at room temperature is to be mentioned. We aim to develop a method for biohazard imaging using ZnO nanoparticles based on this property. Such a technique will firstly need the preparation of nanoparticles as to specific detect the biohazard by bio-functionalization, meaning that firstly functional groups are introduced on the surface of the nanoparticles, then ligand molecules for specific targeting are covalently bound on the functional groups. For the functionalization of the nanoparticles we propose a novel technique that overcomes the numerous issues of existing chemical “in liquid” processing methods (e.g. agglomeration, solubility) - low temperature dry plasma processing³.