Carbon dots as smart biosensing and imaging materials delving with antimicrobial, antifungal, and antiviral potentials against infectious pathogens

Abstract In the emerging era of infectious diseases, antimicrobials are widely applied against pathogenic microbes (i.e., bacteria, fungus, or virus) to avoid global mortality. Nonetheless, quite a few of the microbiome adopted genetic mutations over extended period and fostered sustainable resistance towards the existing and newer antibiotics. Carbon dots (CDs) are the carbon‐based nanomaterials, unveiled their potential as antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral agents resembled with ease of synthesis, reduced toxicity, smart functionalization, high aqueous dispersibility, and auspicious biocompatibility. This review has emphasized over the discussion corroborated with the types of CDs and their synthesis, and numerous properties of CDs tailored to their biofunctionalization. Further the article was featured with the antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, bioimaging, biosensing, and anticancer responsiveness of CDs (in vivo and in vitro mode) followed by their biocompatibility, toxicity assessments, challenges, and future prospectives.