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There is currently great interest in developing chemiluminescence (CL) probes that can selectively detect peroxynitrite (ONOO(-)) in living cells. In comparison with other reactive oxygen species (ROS), ONOO(-) can spontaneously decompose into a series of radicals. Notably, the interaction of quantum dots (QDs) with oxidizing/reducing ROS radicals can generate a strong CL emission by electron-transfer annihilation. Herein, we report a novel CL probe that affords the ability to distinguish ONOO(-) from other ROS in living cells. ONOO(-) can activate luminescence of QDs in the absence of excitation source, effectively avoiding background noise and scattering of light from biological matrixes produced by in situ excitation; however, there is no response to other ROS including (1)O2, H2O2, (•)OH, O2(•-), and ClO(-). The outstanding selectivity of the present CL probe leads us to detect the exogenous release of ONOO(-) from 3-morpholinosydnonimine (SIN-1) in living cells. These results suggest that this present probe-based CL provides a promising platform for highly selective and sensitive detection of ONOO(-) in biological systems.

We report a new type of single InAs quantum dot (QD) embedded at the junction of gold-free branched GaAs/AlGaAs nanowire (NW) grown on silicon substrate. The photoluminescence intensity of such QD is ~20 times stronger than that from randomly distributed QD grown on the facet of straight NW. Sharp excitonic emission is observed at 4.2 K with a line width of 101 μeV and a vanishing two-photon emission probability of g(2)(0) = 0.031(2). This new nanostructure may open new ways for designing novel quantum optoelectronic devices.