Wurtzite and zinc-blende CdSe based core/shell semiconductor nanocrystals: Structure, morphology and photoluminescence

We report comparative study of core/shell nanocrystals based on wurtzite and novel zinc-blende CdSe core. Both wurtzite and zinc-blende CdSe are coated with CdS shell or CdS/ZnS multishell under identical synthetic parameters. Crystal structure analysis finds that CdS shell is wurtzite on either wurtzite or zinc-blende CdSe cores. Morphology and photoluminescence studies exhibit that for zinc-blende CdSe based samples, the shell growth is in fine epitaxy and the obtained core/shell nanocrystals show high quantum yield both before and after surface modification process; while wurtzite CdSe based samples have irregular shape indicating inhomogeneous shell growth, and are with lower quantum yield. Furthermore, in the photoluminescence spectra exited with UV radiation, wurtzite CdSe based samples show side peaks of independently nucleated nanocrystals from the shell material; while samples with zinc-blende CdSe cores are potent in restricting these byproducts, which may attribute to the highly effective arrestment of precursor ions onto the zinc-blende CdSe surface. These features manifest that zinc-blende CdSe is more talented than conventional wurtzite CdSe in achieving core/shell nanocrystals with higher qualities.