Study of Phosphine Tellurides as Precursors in the Synthesis of HgTe CQDs for IR Applications

Abstract

Here, we report the study of several phosphine tellurides in the preparation of HgTe CQDs. The efficient synthesis and characterization of HgTe CQDs were developed for the first time by applying Tris(dimethylamino)phosphine telluride in THF (TDMAPTe/THF) and mercury chloride (HgCl2) precursors. The preparation was conducted through an organometallic hot-injection route. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), SAED analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV–Vis–NIR spectroscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and Raman spectroscopy were employed in the characterization of obtained nanocrystals. The comparison between TDMAPTe/THF and TOPTe precursors revealed that the former had a higher chemical reactivity. The band edge peak of the nanocrystals prepared using TDMAPTe/THF was at 1297 nm after a reaction time of 15 min with narrow size distribution (FWHM~214 nm). The first absorption peak red-shifted to ~1336 nm after 60 min and no significant red-shift was observed far ahead.

Keywords

• mercury telluride
• colloidal quantum dots
• Tris(dimethylamino)phosphine telluride (TDMAPTe)
• Tri-octylphosphine telluride (TOPTe)