Herein, a mini review is presented concerning the most recent research progress of carbon nanodots, which have emerged as one of the most attractive photoluminescent materials. Different synthetic methodologies to achieve advanced functions and better photoluminescence performances are summarized, which are mainly divided into two classes: top-down and bottom-up. The inspiring properties, including photoluminescence emission, chemiluminescence, electrochemical luminescence, peroxidase-like activity and toxicity, are discussed. Moreover, the biomedical applications in biosensing, bioimaging and drug delivery are reviewed.

Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) have been widely studied because of their potential importance in industry. A variety of luminescent materials have been developed and used for LSC fabrication such as organic dyes and semiconductor quantum dots. However, fabricating LSCs with a cost-effective method and environmentally friendly materials is a great challenge. Here, N-doped carbon-dots (N-CDs) are for the first time reported to be used as phosphors for LSC fabrication. The properties of N-CDs/PMMA thin film LSCs with various thicknesses are investigated. When the N-CDs/PMMA thin film thickness is 6.67 μm and only one side of LSCs is covered by photovoltaic cells, the performance of the LSCs is optimal, and the values of V_oc, J_sc, FF, η_opt and η can reach up to 0.46 V, 13.68 mA cm⁻², 62.89%, 4.75% and 3.94%, respectively. Moreover, the photostability of the LSCs is excellent. Results show that N-CDs are able to be effective luminophores for LSC fabrication. Our technique makes the industrial applications of LSCs more feasible since N-CDs have advantages such as high stability, low cost, low toxicity and high photoluminescence quantum yield.