Aim

The objection of this experiment was to synthesize Cadmium Selenide (CdSe) quantum dots
and to study their spectroscopic properties and thus determining their size distribution under
UV/Vis spectroscopy.

Abstract

Cadmium Selenide CdSe) nanocrystals composed of a CdSe ligand shell, were synthesised
from the solutions of CdO, oleic acid and octadecene under a high temperature of 225 ⁰C.
The selenium stock was also added. The samples were taken between the time intervals of 10
seconds from each other. This is because the size of the nanoparticles depends on reaction
time. From the samples different colours are observed. The spectroscopic properties of
cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanocrystals were analysed. Manipulating the kinetics of their
formation allowed different sized nanoparticles to be obtained. The absorbance and emission
of visible light by the synthesized CdSe was then measured and studied.

Nanocrystals, also referred to as nanoclusters or quantum dots, are extremely small

crystalline particles that exhibit strongly size-dependent optical and electrical properties
enabling them to be analyzed using spectroscopic techniques. The high level of control over
the size of the nanocrystals produced allows the excitation and emission of quantum dots to
be highly tunable thereby making then of great scientific interest due to their wide variety of
potential applications. The quantum dots are also known semiconductors due to some extent
that they are electrical conductive and magnetic.

Photon absorption of sufficient energy by a semiconductor promotes an electron from the

valence band energy level to the conduction band energy level, leaving a positively charged
hole where the electron used to reside. The electron and the positively charged hole are
attracted to one another by an electrostatic Coulomb force in a bound state. When the
electron-hole pair recombines, light is emitted. The energy of absorbed or emitted light is
determined by the energy difference between the top of the valence band and the bottom of
the conduction band, which is known as the band gap (𝐸𝑔 ). The energies of these excitations
and emissions lie in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum and will vary
depending on the size of the particles. Larger quantum dots decrease the energy band gap and
emit large wavelength photons, thus the energy of excitation and emission is lower. Also
larger quantum dots contain more energy levels which are spaced closer together and
therefore less energy is required to generate electron-hole pairs.

Nanocrystals, such as CdSe, are zero dimensional nanomaterials that exhibit strong quantum
confinement in all three dimensions. Because their size-tunable optical properties span the
visible spectrum, CdSe quantum dots are of the most widely studied semiconductor
nanocrystals.

In this experiment one should learn the principle of interband transition and quantum
confinement effect in zero dimensional dots. In the procedure cadmium selenide (CdSe)
semiconductor nanocrystals are synthesized and their spectroscopic properties are analyzed.
Reaction kinetics control the size of the nanocrystals and attaching organic coordinating
ligands prevent agglomeration of the particles.

Results and discussion

Figure 1:

The measured %Transmitance of CdSe

quantum dots against the wavenumber
800
sample1
700
sample 2
600 sample 3
sample 4
%transmitance

500
sample 5
400
sample 6
300 sample 7
200 sample 8
sample 9
100
sample 10
0
350 400 450 Wavenumber
500 550 600 650 700
Figure 2

Table 1: The observed color changes of the ten samples when quenched at a temperature of
225°C

Sample Time (s) Observed color change

1 10 Faint orange
2 10 Orange
3 10 Orange
4 10 Orange
5 10 Dark orange
6 20 Dark orange
7 20 Orange-red color
8 20 Faint red
9 20 Red
10 20 Dark red