Radial breathing modes in silver selenide quantum dots

•Radial breathing modes in quantum dots.•Porous mineral for synthesis of quantum dots.•Parameters of structural stability in AgSe Clusters.

Silver selenide (Ag2Se) quantum dots obtained in synthetic zeolite F9 through ion exchange are reported in this work. A hydrothermal reaction was conducted between the zeolite–Ag+ system with Na2SeSO3. Quantum dots smaller than 10 nm were measured by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). The particles have a cubic structure with a phase lm-m (229). A shoulder centered at 150 cm−1 was experimentally detected after the synthesis of quantum dots by Raman Spectroscopy. The Density Functional Theory (DFT) was employed to determine a possible allocation to the Raman band detected. The LSDA (Local Spin Density Approximation) approximation levels and B3LYP (Becke's three-parameter Exchange functional and the gradient corrected functional of Lee, Yang and Puar) were employed in combination with the basis set LANL2DZ (Los Alamos National Laboratory 2-double-ζ) to study the structural and vibrational properties in minimum energy clusters (AgSe)n. Radial Breathing Modes were detected between 150 and 252 cm−1 for these levels of approximation.