Highly fluorescence-stable blue CdZnS/ZnS quantum dots against degradable environmental conditions

Abstract

We report on synthesis of highly efficient, color-pure blue CdZnS/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) and their excellent fluorescent stability against degradable environmental conditions. The CdZnS/ZnS QDs finely emission-tunable in the range of 440–461nm exhibit high photoluminescence (PL) quantum yields (QYs) of 81–92% along with an exceptionally narrow spectral bandwidth of 19nm. These QDs are subjected to various post-treatments of a thorough purification cycle, long-term UV illumination, and hydrophobic-to-hydrophilic ligand exchange, each of which is usually detrimental to QD fluorescence. As a result, no noticeable deterioration in the fluorescent properties is observed, indicative of the insensitiveness of our CdZnS/ZnS QDs to the above degradable processes. Furthermore, PL properties of a solid film of multiple QD layers are assessed and compared with those of a diluted QD solution, showing an unprecedentedly small QY reduction of solid QD film versus QD solution. The above promising results are justified mainly by emphasizing the role of a thick ZnS shell present in CdZnS/ZnS QDs.