Preparation and optical properties of blue-emitting colloidal CdS nanocrystallines by the solvothermal process using poly (ethylene oxide) as the stabilizer

Abstract

Blue-emitting colloidal CdS nanocrystals have been synthesized through the solvothermal reaction of cadmium acetate and thiourea in N,N-dimethylformamide using poly(ethylene oxide; PEO) as the stabilizing polymer. The as-prepared CdS colloids were stable at ambient conditions for several weeks. The PEO-stabilized CdS colloids showed a narrow fluorescence band with the maximum at about 420 nm and thus emitting blue fluorescence under the ultraviolet (UV) lamp. A common red shift of fluorescence band is not detected for the prepared CdS colloids in the study, indicating that PEO-stabilized CdS NCs possess few crystalline defects on their surface. In addition, transmission electron microscope micrographs reveal that the sizes of CdS NCs are between 4.4 to 5.4 nm with small standard deviations from 0.5 to 0.7 nm. The particle growth kinetics was studied by monitoring UV-visible absorption onsets versus the reaction time and was found to nearly follow the Lifshitz–Slyozov–Wagner theory for the Ostwald ripening mechanism.