Electrochemical Reduction Synthesis of Photoluminescent Silicon Nanocrystals

Abstract

An efficient synthesizing procedure of photoluminescent silicon nanocrystals is demonstrated using ultrasound assisted electrochemical octyltrichlorosilane reduction that produces alkyl terminated Si nanocrystals in a single step. The described procedure allows to make Si nanocrystals with octyl surface termination, is clean, relatively simple, and potentially scalable to industrial quantities. High resolution transmission electron microscopy, powder X-ray diffraction, UV-VIS absorbance, Fourier transform infra red spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy are employed to characterize the synthesized photoluminescent Si nanocrystals. Resulting octyl termination provides a stable passivation and could serve as a platform for further particle functionalization.