A new two-phase route to high-quality CdS nanocrystals.

A new two-phase route has been developed to synthesize high-quality CdS nanocrystals with a narrow size distribution and a high photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield (QY). In the two-phase system, toluene and water were used as separate solvents for cadmium myristate (CdM2) and thiourea, which served as cadmium source and sulfur source, respectively, and oleic acid (OA) was used as a ligand for stabilizing the nanocrystals. The reactions were completed in the heated autoclaves. The initial Cd/S molar ratio of the precursors and the reaction temperature were found to be factors that affected the growth of nanocrystals. Furthermore, a seeding-growth technique was developed to synthesize CdS nanocrystals of different sizes, which exhibit PL peaks with quite similar full width at half-maximum (FWHM) values compared to those of the initial nanocrystal seeds in all cases.