Water-Soluble Fluorescent CdTe/ZnSe Core/Shell Quantum Dot: Aqueous Phase Synthesis and Cytotoxicity Assays

In this manuscript, we demonstrate a novel, facile and environmentally friendly method to directly obtain CdTe/ZnSe core/shell QDs in the aqueous phase based on the method of epitaxial growth of ZnSe shells on CdTe cores. The ZnSe shell and the capping reagent glutathione of the CdTe/ZnSe core/shell QDs greatly increased the biocompatibility and stability of the original CdTe cores. The optical property of the as-prepared CZ QDs could be controlled by precisely adjusting the size of CdTe cores, which showed broad emission spectra from 530 to 688 nm. The crystalline structure of the CZ QDs was extensively characterized by XRD, TEM and HRTEM, etc. Furthermore, since there were several functional groups on glutathione molecules, the QDs could be potentially used for connecting other functional small molecules, biomolecules or nanoparticles. Such QDs have bright future perspectives in the development biological and nanomedical fields.