Narrow Results

A series of cadmium telluride (CdTe) nanocrystals were synthesized by a modified organometallic synthesis method at various reaction temperatures ranging from 130 to 250°C. In this method, octadecylamine (ODA) was introduced as an additional coordinating component to the mixture of trioctylphosphine oxide (TOPO) and trioctylphosphine (TOP). CdO was used as a precursor. The prepared CdTe nanocrystals were studied by the absorption and emission spectra as well as the powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns. The result shows that besides the traditional continuous-growth mode observed frequently at relatively high reaction temperature, a discontinuous-growth mode was confirmed at the initial growth stage of CdTe nanocrystals, arising from the change of the absorption spectra of CdTe nanocrystals with the reaction time at relatively low reaction temperature. The structures of CdTe nanocrystals, e.g., the cubic zinc blende structure at 160°C and the hexagonal wurtzite structure at 250°C, were characterized by XRD.

Colloidal CdSe nanocrystals (NCs) were etched after Se/TBP and Zinc stearate/ODE were injected into the mixture of as-prepared CdSe NCs and Copper (II) acetate in ODE solvent. Spectroscopic and structural investigations demonstrate the etching process. Along with the etching time, both the absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra of etched NCs showed blue-shift while the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images indicated that the size of the NCs became from 5.6nm to 2.6nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns suggested that no other clusters or core/shell NCs were formed in the etching process and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) data demonstrated that only selenium and cadmium comprised the etched NCs. Electronic paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra indicated the deoxidization of Cu${}^{2+}$ ions and suggested the etching mechanism through cation exchange process.