The PL quantum yield also depended on heating time (Figure 2). Increasing the heating time led to increased PL quantum yield, and maxima occurred at 120 min. Such PL quantum yield increase could be ascribed to the improvement of the crystallization and annealing effect of defects. However,
further heating resulted in a decrease in PL quantum yield due to broad distribution and relatively small surface/volume ratio of the obtained QDs. Another evidence of the broad distribution is the increased full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the selleckchem resultant CdTe QDs, which broadened from 40 to 66 nm in the heating time of 0 to 270 min. With heating time longer than 300 min, there Stattic supplier were lots of black depositions in the solution, which may be caused by the oxidization and aggregation of CdTe QDs due to the destruction of MPA. Meanwhile, the see more PL quantum yield of the CdTe QDs decreases dramatically. Figure 2 Variation of quantum yield and FWHM of CdTe QDs at different reflux times. The as-prepared CdTe QDs were further characterized with XRD, TEM, HR-TEM, and XPS. As shown in Figure 3a, the diameter of the as-prepared CdTe QDs (refluxed for 120 min) is about 3 nm, which is very close to that estimated from Yu and colleagues’ empirical equation [21]. Typical HR-TEM image in Figure 3b indicated good crystalline structure of the CdTe QDs. The XRD pattern of CdTe QDs (Figure 3c) shows three diffraction peaks at 24.5°, 40.6°,
and 48°, which can be readily assigned to the (111), (220), and
(311) planes. Such characteristic diffraction pattern is the sign of the typical zinc-blend structure (JCPDS No. 65–1046). Figure 3 The as-prepared CdTe QDs. TEM (a) and HR-TEM (b) images, and XRD (c) pattern. Figure 4 shows the corresponding elemental composition by recording XPS core PIK-5 level spectra. Figure 4a shows an overview spectrum of the CdTe QDs. Different Cd and Te core levels can be seen. Furthermore, the main source of carbon, oxygen, and sulfur elements was from the stabilizer MPA. In our study, we focused on the Cd 3d, Te 3d, and S 2p levels. The Cd 4d and Te 4d levels have not been studied here because they are quite close to the valence band and, therefore, less reliable to analyze. The spectra of the Cd 3d and Te 3d level have been recorded in Figure 4b,c. The appearances of Cd 3d 3/2 peak at 411.9 eV, Cd 3d 5/2 peak at 405.2 eV, Te 3d 5/2 peak at 572.5 eV, and Te 3d 3/2 peak at 582.8 eV confirm the existence of cadmium and tellurium species in the CdTe QDs. This is in agreement with the previous reports [22] and further confirms the formation of CdTe QDs. Moreover, it can be seen clearly in the figure that two additional peaks appeared at binding energies of 576.0 and 586.6 eV, corresponding to the Te-O bonding states in CdTeO3, which are possible products from the oxidation reactions of CdTe QDs [23]. As mentioned in the experimental section, the CdTe QDs are capped with MPA.