Controlling the magic and normal sizes of white CdSe quantum dots

Abstract

In this study, we have demonstrated a facile chemical route to prepare CdSe QDs with white light emission, and the performance of white CdSe-based white light emitting diode (WLED) is also exploded. An organic oleic acid (OA) is used to form Cd-OA complex first and hexadecylamine (HDA) and 1-octadecene (ODE) is used as surfactants. Meanwhile, by varying the reaction time from 1 s to 60 min, CdSe QDs with white light can be obtained. The result shows that the luminescence spectra compose two obvious emission peaks and entire visible light from 400 to 700 nm, when the reaction time less than 10 min. The wide emission wavelength combine two particle sizes of CdSe, magic and normal, and the magic-CdSe has band-edge and surface-state emission, while normal size only possess band-edge emission. The TEM characterization shows that the two different sizes with diameter of 1.5 nm and 2.7 nm for magic and normal size CdSe QDs can be obtained when the reaction time is 4 min. We can find that the magic size of CdSe is produced when the reaction time is less than 3 min. In the time ranges from 3 to 10 min, two sizes of CdSe QDs are formed, and with QY from 20 to 60 %. Prolong the reaction time to 60 min, only normal size of CdSe QD can be observed due to the Ostwald repining, and its QYs is 8 %. Based on the results we can conclude that the two emission peaks are generated from the coexistence of magic size and normal size CdSe to form the white light QDs, and the QY and emission wavelength of CdSe QDs can be increased with prolonging reaction time. The sample reacts for 2 (QY 30 %), 4 (QY 32 %) and 60 min (QY 8 %) are choosing to mixes with transparent acrylic-based UV curable resin for WLED fabrication. The Commission International d’Eclairage (CIE) chromaticity, color rendering index (CRI), and luminous efficacy for magic, mix, and normal size CdSe are (0.49, 0.44), 81, 1.5 lm/W, (0.35, 0.30), 86, 1.9 lm/W, and (0.39, 0.25), 40, 0.3 lm/W, respectively.