Controlled optical properties of water-soluble CdTe nanocrystals via anion exchange

We report a study on anion exchange reaction of CdTe nanocrystals with S(2-) in aqueous solution under ambient condition. We found that the optical properties of CdTe nanocrystals can be well tuned by controlling the reaction conditions, in which the reaction temperature is crucially important. At low reaction temperature, the product nanocrystals showed blue-shifts in both absorption and PL spectra, while the photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) was significantly enhanced. When anion exchanges were carried out at higher reaction temperature, on the other hand, obvious red shifts in absorption and PL spectra accompanied by a fast increase followed by gradual decrease in PLQY were observed. On variation of S(2-) concentration, it was found that the overall kinetics of Te(2-) for S(2-) exchanges depends also on [S(2-)] when anion exchanges were performed at higher temperature. A possible mechanism for anion exchanges in CdTe NCs was proposed.