‘Nanocarbon science’ ignited interest owing to its substantial scope in biomedicine, energy and environment-beneficial applications. Carbon dots (C-dots), a multi-faceted nanocarbon material, emerged as a homologue to graphene and henceforth geared extensive investigation both on its properties and applications. Eximious properties like excitation-wavelength tunable fluorescence emission, up-converted photoluminescence, photon-induced electron transfer, low cytotoxicity, chiroptical behavior, high chemical and photostability set the ground for astounding applications of carbon dots. Abundant availability of raw ‘green’ precursors complementary to other molecular/graphitic precursors make them environmentally benign, inexpensive and ultimately ‘nanomaterials of the current decade’. This review focuses on the synthesis of carbon dots not only from natural sources but also from other carbonaceous precursors and contemplates the inherent but controversial properties. We also aim to garner the attention of readers to the recent progress achieved by C-dots in one of its prestantious area of applications as nanosensors.

“纳米碳科学”因其在生物医学、能源和环境有益应用方面的广泛应用而引起了人们的兴趣。碳点（C-dots）是一种多面纳米碳材料，作为石墨烯的同系物出现，因此对其性能和应用进行了广泛的研究。激发波长可调荧光发射、上转换光致发光、光子诱导电子转移、低细胞毒性、手性行为、高化学和光稳定性等卓越特性为碳点的惊人应用奠定了基础。与其他分子/石墨前体互补的原始“绿色”前体的丰富可用性使它们对环境无害，价格低廉，最终成为“当前十年的纳米材料”。本综述重点关注不仅来自天然来源而且来自其他碳质前体的碳点的合成，并考虑了固有但有争议的特性。我们还旨在吸引读者注意碳点在其作为纳米传感器的著名应用领域之一取得的最新进展。