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Water-soluble and stable CdTe quantum dots (QDs) were synthesized in aqueous solution with glutathione (GSH) as the stabilizer. GSH is employed by nature to detoxify heavy metal ions. As a result of specific interaction, the fluorescence intensity of GSH-capped QDs is selectively reduced in the presence of Cr(VI). Under the optimum conditions, the relative fluorescence intensity decreases linearly with the Cr(VI) concentration in the range from 0.01 to 1.00 µg mL−1, and the detection limit is 0.008 µg mL−1. The luminescence response of the QDs to ions markedly depended on the particle size, and a new strategy for tuning the selectivity of luminescent QDs to certain ions without changing the capping layer of the QDs can be achieved by changing the crystallite size of the QDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]