Synthesis of high-quality water-soluble near-infrared-emitting CdTe quantum dots capped with 3-mercaptobutyric acid

Highly fluorescent CdTe quantum dots (QDs) with emission in red to near-infrared (NIR) wavelength were successfully prepared by using 3-mercaptobutyric acid (3MBA) as capping agent. The maximum of quantum yield (QY) could reach up to 82% for QDs with emission peak at 686 nm and FWHM of 66 nm at opti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of nanoscience and nanotechnology Vol. 14; no. 7; p. 4940
Main Authors Ma, Kai-Guo, Bai, Jin-Yi, Fang, Tan, Guo, Hai-Qing
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.07.2014
Subjects
Butyrates - chemistry
Cadmium Compounds - chemistry
Crystallization - methods
Infrared Rays
Materials Testing
Particle Size
Quantum Dots
Solubility
Spectrometry, Fluorescence - methods
Tellurium - chemistry
Water - chemistry
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Summary:Highly fluorescent CdTe quantum dots (QDs) with emission in red to near-infrared (NIR) wavelength were successfully prepared by using 3-mercaptobutyric acid (3MBA) as capping agent. The maximum of quantum yield (QY) could reach up to 82% for QDs with emission peak at 686 nm and FWHM of 66 nm at optimal conditions. The QY of these QDs could maintain above 65% in the 650-750 nm region and QDs with emission over 800 nm were still strong fluorescent (28-41%). These optical properties of CdTe quantum dots are among the best results prepared by the state-of-the-art methods, suggesting their promising applications in bio-imaging. The success of 3MBA as excellent capping agent in this method was attributed to the balanced chain length and methyl side chain in comparison to a series of linear and branched mercapto acids, namely thioglycolic acid, thiolactic acid, 3-mercaptopropionic acid, 4-mercaptobutyric acid, 5-mercaptovaleric acid, 4-mercaptovaleric acid and 3-mercapto-2-methylbutyric acid.
ISSN:1533-4880
DOI:10.1166/jnn.2014.8071