Facile synthesis of magic-sized CdSe and CdTe nanocrystals with tunable existence periods

• Published in: Nanotechnology Vol. 18; no. 40; pp. 405603 - 405603 (7)
• Main Authors: Dai, Quanqin, Li, Dongmei, Chang, Jingjing, Song, Yanli, Kan, Shihai, Chen, Haiyong, Zou, Bo, Xu, Weiqing, Xu, Shuping, Liu, Bingbing, Zou, Guangtian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IOP Publishing 10.10.2007
• ISSN: 0957-4484; 1361-6528
• DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/18/40/405603

A facile and reproducible approach for the synthesis of magic-sized CdSe and CdTe nanocrystals is established. The as-synthesized CdSe nanocrystals exhibit strong and fixed absorption features with unusually narrow emission spectra. White-light emission can be achieved by two different routes. One is to mix colours emitted from both the magic-sized nanocrystals and the subsequently transformed regular-sized nanocrystals; the other is to expose the magic-sized nanocrystals to ambient conditions. A systematic study of the nanocrystal formation process shows that monomer activity and injection/growth temperatures are important parameters to the growth kinetics of magic-sized nanocrystals. Variation of these parameters provides tunable existence periods in the hot solution.