Carbogenic nano dots (CNDs) have got tremendous applications in optoelectronics, light harvesting, photovoltaics, drug delivery, bioimaging, catalysis and sensors. CNDs are typically 2-5 nm in size and exhibit excitation dependent multicolour photoluminescence. While the real chemical structure and the corresponding photoluminescence mechanism of these CNDs are still elusive,1 recent reports in bottom-up synthesis of these nanodots pose a critical issue.2 Research suggests that the fluorescence associated with CNDs may originate significantly from molecular fluorophores and/or their aggregates. These are produced as by-products during CNDs synthesis. As a result, the attribution of photoluminescence properties of the CNDs in several earlier reports may be affected by misleading artifacts and erroneous conclusions3. Here, by highlighting a few key aspects and rectifying these erroneous and misleading artefacts, we provide a clear roadmap for the identification of real CNDs.4 Finally, we will show its application as an efficient fluorescent probe in the single molecule localization based super resolution microscopy.5