F. Riehle, Kui Yu
Jan 30, 2020
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Journal
Chemistry of Materials
Abstract
The proper choice of the solvent is an important parameter in wet-chemical syntheses. Here, we highlight the use of 1-tetradecanol, a fatty alcohol, as an excellent solvent for the synthesis of high-quality zinc blende CdS quantum dots from cadmium laureate and tri-n-octylphosphine sulfide, the organometallic precursors. The as-prepared CdS quantum dots exhibit a defect-free (<1%) narrow blue emission at 452 nm with a full width at half-maximum of 18 nm (size distribution <5%) and photoluminescence quantum yield of 52% in comparison with quinine sulfate (reference dye). Our approach is simple and can be conducted as a one-pot reaction in air at temperatures below 200 °C. The key synthetic challenge is the preparation of the cadmium precursor. In the presence of strong ligands like tri-n-octylphosphine, the particle yield is reduced and no CdS forms, when alcohol is replaced by typical coordinating solvents, such as tri-n-octylphosphine oxide and hexadecylamine. This implies that under the given conditions...