Influence of different stabilizers on the optical and nonlinear optical properties of CdTe nanoparticles

CdTe semiconductor nanocrystals were synthesized with three different stabilizers: Mercaptoacetic Acid (MAA), Mercaptopropionic Acid (MPA) and 2-Mercaptoethanol (ME) at pH ≈ 11.2 by wet chemical route using potassium tellurite and cadmium chloride as starting materials. The effect of capping agent on the preparation of these samples was evaluated using UV–Visible absorption and photoluminescence analysis. With the same reaction time but with different stabilizers, nanocrystals of different diameters were obtained. The average full width at half maximum of the photoluminescence spectra was about 69 nm which indicates that the monodispersity was quite good. The particle size was calculated by Debye–Scherrer equation from XRD data. Further characterization studies such as FT-IR and optical nonlinearity studies on the samples were carried out and the results are discussed.

Research Highlights
► CdTe nanoparticles were synthesized by wet chemical route with different stabilizers.
► The optical and nonlinear optical behavior of CdTe nanoparticles was studied.
► The third-order nonlinear optical properties were studied by the Z-scan technique.
► The particle size was calculated by Debye-Scherrer equation from XRD data.