Investigating the impact of growth time of CdSe quantum dots on the structure and optical properties of its nanocomposites with SiO2 for improvement of optical devices

Abstract

This study effectively succeeded in synthesizing CdSe QDs and CdSe- SiO2 nanocomposites with controllable tunable size and spectacular morphology by using a solvothermal technique. UV–visible spectroscopy was used to study the effect of the growth time of CdSe QDs on the optical properties of its nanocomposite with SiO2. The structure of the prepared nanocomposites of CdSe- SiO2 was studied through the measurements of X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy FTIR. The Effective Mass Approximation model (EMA), Simple Exponential Function (SEF), and Polynomial Fitting Functions (PFF) were employed to compute nanoparticle sizes, providing particle sizes of 3.86, 4.19, and 3.72 nm, respectively, for CdSe- SiO2 nanocomposites (2 min). For the same nanocomposite, these theoretical values were comparable to the experimental values of the particle sizes deduced from measurements of TEM (4.5 nm) and XRD (3.4 nm). The deduced optical parameters of CdSe-SiO2 nanocomposite, such as refractive index, dielectric constant, optical conductivity, electrical susceptibility, and some others, relied on the growth time of CdSe QDs. The absorption peaks of CdSe -SiO2 nanocomposites suffered from a bathochromic shift which increases as the growth time of CdSe QDs increases. Increasing the growth time of CdSe QDs resulted in increasing the reflection loss factor and decreasing the optical electronegativity. The values of the volume energy loss function (VELF) are greater than the values of the surface energy loss function (SELF) for the different nanocomposites. Consequently, the fast electrons miss their energies through their propagation within the studied materials more than through traveling on their surfaces. The enhancement of n values of nanocomposites of CdSe-SiO2 by increasing the growth time can candidate them to be usefully applied as antireflection coating for solar cells.