Cadmium-zinc sulfide alloy nanoparticles were synthesized by addition of aqueous sodium sulfide to solutions of cadmium nitrate, zinc nitrate, and sodium hexametaphosphate. Stirring the reaction during the synthesis was found to markedly improve the reproducibility of product nanoparticles' composition and size, suggesting a diffusion controlled process. Evidence for polyphosphate mediation of the nanoparticle synthesis includes isothermal titration calorimetry of cadmium(II) and zinc(II) complexation to hexametaphosphate and the kinetic profile of the nanoparticle synthesis process. Introduction of possible dopant transition metal cations (silver(I), copper(II), manganese(II), nickel(II)) into the synthesis resulted in product nanoparticles that exhibited sub-band-gap photoluminescence dependent in energy upon the dopant used. The photoluminescence maxima were also affected by the cadmium-zinc ratio in the nanoparticle synthesis with higher zinc content yielding higher energy photoluminescence. Simple models of the doped nanoparticles' electronic structures show consistency between these photoluminescence data and electronic transitions involving a primarily matrix state and a primarily nonbonding state in these doped nanoparticles.

Polyphosphate mediation in synthesis of doped alloy semiconductor nanoparticles

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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