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Rapid and sensitive detection of dopamine (DA) is important for the diagnostics of neurological disorders and the development of new drugs. Here, we report microplasma synthesis of surfaced-functionalized silicon quantum dots (SiQDs) at ambient conditions. The synthesized SiQDs with useful properties including abundant surface functionalities, stable colloidal dispersion, and photoluminescence (PL) emission enable direct label-free detection of DA, providing a wide sensing range from 0.83 to 83.33 μM and a low detection limit of 0.32 μM. Our work provides a new direction for the synthesis of colloidal SiQDs and the understanding of SiQD-based PL probes for biomolecule sensing., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2021 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)