title: Colloidal CdSe nanocrystals synthesized in noncoordinating solvents with the addition of a secondary ligand: exceptional growth kinetics.
abstract: The addition of a secondary ligand, trioctylphosphine oxide, in the synthesis of cadmium selenide nanocrystals performed in a system with oleic acid as the primary ligand and octadecene as the noncoordinating solvent gives rise to the improvement of nanocrystal size distribution. This phenomenon, which is more significant in the nucleation process than in the growth process, demonstrates that the existence of trioctylphosphine oxide allows for superior nucleation control and permits the facile and reproducible production of extremely small CdSe nanocrystals with narrow size distribution. A systematic study of the nanocrystal formation processes shows that the well-established colloidal nanocrystal growth mechanism, in which nucleation is followed by focusing of size distribution and ended with defocusing of size distribution, cannot be applied to our reactions. Instead, we observed an exceptional type of growth mechanism in which, after nucleation, clear defocusing instead of focusing follows; then slight focusing occurs.
authors.affiliation: National Laboratory of Superhard Materials, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Quanqin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Dai
authors.forename: Dongmei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Haiyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Shihai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kan
authors.forename: Hongdong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Shiyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Yuanyuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.forename: Bingbing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Guangtian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zou