Pentafluorophenyl Ester-Functionalized Nanoparticles as a Versatile Platform for Selective and Covalent Inter-nanoparticle Coupling

Preparing chemically selective nanoparticle (NP) building blocks to make robust structures from different NP compositions often requires complex hetero-bifunctional ligand pairs that have limited scalability and versatility. Here we describe pentafluorophenyl ester-functionalized nanoparticles (PFP-NPs) as versatile building blocks for covalent inter-NP coupling. This approach allows for a rapid and dense grafting of PFP-functionalized Au NPs onto several types of amine-functionalized NPs (metals, semiconductors, and insulators) and selective identification of amine-functionalized quantum dots (QDs) in solution. Such simple yet efficient inter-NP reactions suggest the suitability of PFP-NPs as a versatile functional platform for numerous NP-based applications.