We present facile synthesis of bright CdS/CdSe/CdS@SiO nanoparticles with 72% of quantum yields (QYs) retaining ca 80% of the original QYs. The main innovative point is the utilization of the highly luminescent CdS/CdSe/CdS seed/spherical quantum well/shell (SQW) as silica coating seeds. The significance of inorganic semiconductor shell passivation and structure design of quantum dots (QDs) for obtaining bright QD@SiO is demonstrated by applying silica encapsulation via reverse microemulsion method to three kinds of QDs with different structure: CdSe core and 2 nm CdS shell (CdSe/CdS-thin); CdSe core and 6 nm CdS shell (CdSe/CdS-thick); and CdS core, CdSe intermediate shell and 5 nm CdS outer shell (CdS/CdSe/CdS-SQW). Silica encapsulation inevitably results in lower photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) than pristine QDs due to formation of surface defects. However, the retaining ratio of pristine QY is different in the three silica coated samples; for example, CdSe/CdS-thin/SiO shows the lowest retaining ratio (36%) while the retaining ratio of pristine PL QY in CdSe/CdS-thick/SiO and SQW/SiO is over 80% and SQW/SiO shows the highest resulting PL QY. Thick outermost CdS shell isolates the excitons from the defects at surface, making PL QY relatively insensitive to silica encapsulation. The bright SiO-coated SQW sample shows robustness against harsh conditions, such as acid etching and thermal annealing. The high luminescence and long-term stability highlights the potential of using the SQW/SiO nanoparticles in bio-labeling or display applications.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Magnetic properties of nanostructured materials are affected by the microstructures such as grain size (or particle size), internal strain and crystal structure. Thus, it is necessary to study the synthesis of nanostructured materials to make significant improvements in their magnetic properties. In this study, nanostructured Fe-20at.%Co and Fe-50at.%Co alloy powders were prepared by hydrogen reduction from the two oxide powder mixtures, Fe2O3 and Co3O4. Furthermore, the effect of microstructure on the magnetic properties of hydrogen reduced Fe-Co alloy powders was examined using XRD, SEM, TEM, and VSM.