Impact of Silver Doping on the Crystalline Size and Intrinsic Strain of MPA-Capped CdTe Nanocrystals: A Study by Williamson–Hall Method and Size–Strain Plot Method

Abstract

Here, 3-marcaptopropionic acid capped CdTe and Ag doped CdTe (Ag/CdTe) nanocrystals have been prepared by chemical method for the study of the effect of silver doping on the size and elastic properties, especially the intrinsic strain from the x-ray diffraction (XRD) study. Transmission electron microscope images show both the CdTe and Ag/CdTe are spherical in shape and confirms that with the doping of silver, the average size slightly decreases from 7 to 6 nm. Again, selected area electron diffraction pattern shows that both the nanocrystals are crystalline in nature, which has further been confirmed from XRD pattern. From the XRD peak broadening study, different elastic properties have been calculated for both CdTe and Ag/CdTe nanocrystals by using different model of Williamson–Hall (W–H) plot and size–stain plot method. From these studies, it has been found that average size decreases by almost 15% after doping, whereas intrinsic strain with other elastic properties increases by almost 70% after doping of silver. Thus, silver doping has significant effect on the size and elastic properties of CdTe nanocrystals.