The Facile Synthesis of Nanocrystalline Semiconductor Quantum Dots

Current synthetic techniques to high-quality quantum dots (“QD’s”) involve organometallic precursors that are hazardous and expensive and require they be rapidly injected into an extremely hot solvent to form the QD’s. A new method for synthesizing high-quality CdSe QD’s while circumventing these problems has been developed. Different cadmium salts were studied as Cd precursors alternative to dimethylcadmium. High-quality CdSe QD’s were found possible with cadmium acetate as the Cd precursor. Changes in solvent temperature and reaction time had a systematic effect on QD particle sizes and the accompanying optical properties. These preliminary results point to a general method for producing high-quality QD’s that is safer and much more versatile.