Au/ZnS core/shell nanocrystals with controllable shell thicknesses were synthesized using a cysteine-assisted hydrothermal method. Incorporating Au/ZnS nanocrystals into the traditional Pt-catalyzed half-cell reaction led to a 43.3% increase in methanol oxidation current under light illumination, demonstrating their promising potential for metal/semiconductor hybrid nanocrystals as the anode ph...

Chemical reductants of sub-conduction-band potentials are demonstrated to induce large photoluminescence enhancement in colloidal ZnSe-based nanocrystals. The photoluminescence quantum yield of colloidal Mn(2+)-doped ZnSe nanocrystals has been improved from 14% to 80% simply by addition of an outer-sphere reductant. Up to 48-fold redox brightening is observed for nanocrystals with lower startin...

Individual ultrasmall CdSe nanocrystals have recently been found to emit white light, but the ultimate origin of the phenomenon has remained elusive. Here we use a combination of state-of-the-art experiment and theory to show that excitation sets the ultrasmall nanocrystals into a fluxional state. Their energy gaps vary continuously on a femtosecond time scale, so that even an individual nanocr...

Single crystalline SnO2 nanocrystals (~60 nm in size) with a uniform octahedral shape were synthesised using a hydrothermal method. Their phase and morphology were characterized by XRD and FESEM observation. TEM and HRTEM analyses identified that SnO2 octahedral nanocrystals grow along the [001] direction, consisting of dominantly exposed {221} high energy facets. When applied as anode material...

The pure and PVA capped ZnS nanocrystals were synthesized by hydrothermal method using zinc nitrate and thioacetamide as the zinc source and sulphur source respectively. The XRD patterns confirmed the formation of cubic phase ZnS nanoparticles with particle sizes 32.6nm and 30.6nm respectively for the pure and PVA capped nanocrystals. The SEM micrographs show the improvement in the particle siz...

The creation and study of non-metallic nanomaterials that exhibit localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) interactions with light is a rapidly growing field of research. These doped nanocrystals, mainly self-doped semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) and extrinsically-doped metal oxide NCs, have extremely high concentrations of free charge carriers, which allows them to exhibit LSPR at near infr...

Olive-shaped SnO2 nanocrystals were synthesized successfully via a facile hydrothermal route, using tin dichloride hydrate, oxalic acid dihydrate and polyvinylpyrrolidone as reaction precursors, and showed great potential in the large-scale preparation of SnO2 nanocrystals. The prepared SnO2 nanocrystals were characterized using XRD, XPS, SEM, TEM and HRTEM, and showed well-defined olive-shaped...

Stable water soluble surfactant coated CdSe nanocrystals with trioctylphosphine (TOP) were obtained by a process of dynamic surface coating with cationic, anionic, and non-ionic surfactants. The surfactant-coated CdSe/TOP nanocrystals were characterized by complementary techniques of UV-VIS and photo-luminescence spectrophotometry, as well as by means of a capillary zone electrophoretic techniq...

Practical, efficient synthesis of metal oxide nanocrystals with good crystallinity and high specific surface area by a modified polymer-network gel method is demonstrated, taking ZnO nanocrystals as an example. A novel stepwise heat treatment yields significant improvement in crystal quality. Such nanophase materials can effectively degrade common organic dyes under solar radiation and can perf...

The composition and morphology of nanocrystals in urines of healthy persons and lithogenic patients were comparatively investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). It was shown that the main composition of urinary nanocrystals in healthy persons were calcium oxalate dihydrate (COD), uric acid, and ammonium magnesium phosphate (struvite). However, ...