Phosphine-Free Synthesis and Photoluminescence Properties of ZnSe:Cu/ZnSe/ZnS Core/Shell Nanocrystals

High quality zinc blende ZnSe nanocrystals were successfully synthesized using an environmentally friendierly phosphine-free method. Using pre-synthesized ZnSe nanocrystals as core to dope Cu2+ ions, we obtained ZnSe:Cu/ZnSe and ZnSe:Cu/ZnSe/ZnS core/shell nanocrystals. Absorption spectruscopy, photoluminescence (PL) spectruscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to characterize the structures and properties of as-synthesized three kinds of nanocrystals. The results demonstrated that nanocrystals had well dispersion and narrow size-distributions, and the PL emission peak of as-synthesized ZnSe:Cu/ZnSe/ZnS core/shell nanocrystals could be easily tuned from 480 nm to 520 nm by using different sized ZnSe cores.