Transition metal chalcogenides have gained much attention due to their magnetic, optical, and electronic properties. CuCr2Se4 is ferromagnetic chalcospinel with the Curie temperature of 430 K that makes this system interesting to study among the ternary metal-chalcogenides. On the other hand, pyrite CuSe2 is a superconducting compound with the superconducting transition at Tc = 2.4 and indicates weak ferromagnetism at temperatures below 31 K. Herein, we have reported a one-pot colloidal synthesis of shape-controlled CuSe2 and CuCr2Se4 nanoparticles using metal-chloride and metal-acetylacetonate as the precursors and octadecylamine (ODA) as the capping ligand. This study presented the influence of temperature on the growth, composition, and morphology of the products during the heat-up synthesis process. In a typical procedure, the mixture of 0.25 mmol of CuCl2, 0.5 mmol of Cr(acac)3, and 2 mmol of Se were added to 10 g ODA and the solution was heated at a rate of 10 oC min-1 and held at high temperature for 30 minutes under nitrogen atmosphere. The synthesized nanoparticles have been characterized by XRD and their morphology was investigated using TEM. The reaction temperature plays a critical role and could significantly affect the composition, shape, and size of the products. Maintaining the temperature of the reaction at the range between 250-300 oC led to the formation of pyrite CuSe2 nanocubes with an average size of 100 nm, whereas the reaction temperature range between 330-360 oC formed magnetic CuCr2Se4 nanorods with the average size of 30 nm.

Heat-up synthesis of colloidal pyrite CuSe2 nanocubes and magnetic CuCr2Se4 nanorods

2019 Spring National Meeting

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.