Morphology control of cadmium selenide nanocrystals: insights into the roles of di-n-octylphosphine oxide (DOPO) and ucid (DOPA).

Di-n-octylphosphine oxide (DOPO) and di-n-octylphosphinic acid (DOPA), as two of impurities found in commercial tri-n-octylphosphine oxide (TOPO), generate significant differences in the outcomes of CdSe-nanocrystal (NC) syntheses. Using n-tetradecylphosphonic acid (TDPA) as the primary acid additive, quantum dots (QDs) are grown with DOPO added, whereas quantum rods (QRs) are grown in the presence of DOPA. While using oleic acid (OA) as the primary acid additive, QDs are generated and the QDs produced with DOPA exhibit larger sizes and size distributions than those produced with DOPO. (31)P NMR analyses of the reaction mixtures reveal that the majority of the DOPO has been converted into DOPA and di-n-octylphosphine (DOP) with DOP being removed via evacuation over the course of Cd-precursor preparation. The origin of the puzzling differences in the shape control of CdSe NCs in the presence of DOPO and DOPA is elucidated to be the small quantity of DOPO present, which liberates DOP during NC synthesis. In the presence of DOP, regardless of DOPA, the precursor-conversion kinetics and thus the nucleation kinetics are dramatically accelerated, generating a large number of nuclei by consuming a significant amount of CdSe nutrients, favoring QD growth. Similarly, QD growth is favored by the fast nucleation kinetics in the presence of OA, and the broader size distributions of QDs with DOPA are due to a second nucleation event initiated by the more stable Cd-di-n-octylphosphinate component. In contrast, a slow nucleation event results in the growth of QRs in the case of using DOPA and TDPA, where no DOPO or DOP is present. The results, thus, demonstrate the important role of precursor-conversion kinetics in the control of NC morphologies.