Calls for papers

 

International Journal of Biomedical Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

 

Special Issue on: "Quantum Dots in Biomedical Research"

Guest Editor: Dr. H.Banerjee, Elizabeth City State University, USA

A quantum dot is a semiconductor whose excitons (an exciton is a bound state of an electron and an imaginary particle called an electron hole in an insulator or semiconductor, and such is a Coulomb-correlated electron-hole pair ) are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Their application in medical imaging, for diagnosis and prognosis, has been investigated in different labs. In such applications, quantum dots are used as qubits (quantum binary digits). There are several ways to confine excitons in semiconductors, resulting in different methods of producing quantum dots.

In general, quantum wires, wells and dots are grown by advanced epitaxial techniques in nanocrystals produced by chemical methods or by ion implantation, or in nanodevices made by state-of-the-art lithographic techniques. An immediate optical feature of colloidal quantum dots is their coloration. While the material which makes up a quantum dot defines its intrinsic energy signature, the quantum confined size of the nanocrystal is more significant at energies near the band gap. Thus quantum dots of the same material, but with different sizes, can emit light of different colours. The physical reason is quantum confinement effect.

The use of quantum dots for highly sensitive cellular imaging has seen major advances over the past decade. The improved photostability of quantum dots for example, allows the acquisition of many consecutive focal-plane images that can be reconstructed into a high-resolution three-dimensional image. Another application that takes advantage of the extraordinary photostability of quantum dot probes is the real-time tracking of molecules and cells over extended periods of time. Researchers were able to observe quantum dots in lymph nodes of mice for more than 4 months. The ability to image single-cell migration in real time is expected to be important to several research areas such as embryogenesis, cancer metastasis, stem-cell therapeutics, and lymphocyte immunology. The bottleneck of using quantum dots is their toxicity.

Subject Coverage
Suitable topics include, but are not limited to:
Quantum dots:

• History and development
• Optical and electronic properties
• Applications in biology and medicine
• Quantum dots in medicinal chemistry and drug development

Notes for Prospective Authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere

All papers are refereed through a peer review process. A guide for authors, sample copies and other relevant information for submitting papers are available on the Author Guidelines page

Important Dates

Deadline for submission of manuscripts: 31 January 2010 (extended)

Communication of peer reviews to authors: 28 February 2010

Deadline for revised manuscripts: 31 March 2010