Optical characterization of surface defects incadmium selenide (CdSe) colloidal quantum dots

ABSTRACTIn this work, non-stoichiometric defects and dangling bond defects were optically characterized for CdSe colloidal quantum dots (QDs), which were prepared by the thermal decomposition method. Particularly, the presence of defects linked to a high QD surface to volume ratio was studied. The photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the samples show two bands, which could be associated to excitonic recombination and excitonic recombination via surface defects. The samples remained untreated for a period of time after preparation. During this time a gradual deterioration of the QDs was observed by monitoring the evolution of PL spectra. An increase in intensity of the band associated to recombination via defects, with respect to the excitonic emission band, was observed. Subsequently, the samples were washed using abundant ethanol and dissolved in 1-octadecene. After this treatment a gradual recovery of the excitonic PL band was observed. This could be attributed to the removal of reaction residues that could give rise to defects, and to a rearrangement of the surfactants, thus showing a form of surface defects passivation. For all the samples, investigated in this work, a greater presence of surface defects for QDs of higher surface to volume ratio was observed.