Hydrophilic, hole-delocalizing ligand shell to promote charge transfer from colloidal CdSe quantum dots in water

Jonathan Lee, Wei Li, Alexander J. Cowan, Frank Jäckel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Colloidal cadmium chalcogenide nanocrystals are usually stabilized in polar solvents by functionalizing the surface with a layer of hydrophilic ligands. While these ligands protect against aggregation, they also present a steric barrier that hinders surface access. In applications that require charge transfer to and from nanocrystals, colloidal stability and surface access for redox species are therefore difficult to reconcile. This work assesses the possibility of a more dynamic ligand shell that not only provides stability to nanocrystals but also promotes charge transfer without the need for ligand removal. We use transient absorption spectroscopy to study CdSe quantum dots functionalized with hydrophilic, hole-delocalizing dithiocarbamate ligands in water for the first time, and find that a conjugated ligand facilitates charge transfer to redox species in solution
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)15160-15168
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry: Part C
Volume121
Issue number28
Early online date21 Jun 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jul 2017

Bibliographical note

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Journal of Physical Chemistry: Part C, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.7b02949

Funding: University of Liverpool; EPSRC (EP/G03088X/1).

The underlying EPSRC-funded data in this paper is available from http://dx.doi.org/10.17638/datacat.liverpool.ac.uk/368.

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