Towards bio-safe and easily redispersible bare ZnO quantum dots engineered via organometallic wet-chemical processing

Organometallic one-pot synthesis of ZnO quantum dots coated by sulfoxides as L-type ligands

“…S6, ESI†). The presented characteristics allow us to conclude that both DMSO- and DBSO-protected ZnO QDs (previously reported DMSO 47 as well as DBSO presented herein) obtained in our one-pot one-step organometallic procedure, hold similar physical properties, thereby neat sulfoxides can play a dual role as effective L-type protectors and solvents for the fabrication of colloidal, quantum-sized ZnO nanocrystals.…”

“…Thus, the size parameters of ZnO-DBSO are very similar to that observed for ZnO-DMSO. 47 Intensity-based DLS studies indicate a partial aggregation of QDs in solution ( Z -average – 68.8 nm), likely forming soft-type aggregates driven by non-covalent DBSO-DBSO and DBSO-H 2 O interactions in the same vein as it was observed for the ZnO-DMSO system. 47 The number-derived distribution data clearly shows the predominance of well-dispersed QDs (with a solvodynamic diameter of ca.…”

“…For DMSO and DMF, the DN equals to 30.0 and 26.5, respectively, 69 thus it is reasonable to expect higher binding affinity of DMSO than DMF molecules to the surface Zn sites. The adverse effect of DMF on QD's stability may arise from both a weak biding affinity to the QDs’ surface and restricted abilities to the formation of a ‘swollen’ solvating shell composed of DMF and water molecules, driven by non-covalent interactions, as it was observed for ZnO-DMSO 47 (note that ligand-ligand and ligand-water interactions regarding DMSO and DMF have been a subject of numerous spectroscopic and computational studies over the recent years 67,68,70 ).…”

“…Our investigations were commenced with the previously reported one-pot, one-step procedure 45,47 using DMF (Fig. 1).…”

A modular design approach to polymer-coated ZnO nanocrystals

“…This relatively cheap and fast manufacturing method has some significant limitations associated with, for example, low reproducibility and the lack of compositional consistency and stability of the inorganic core-organic shell interface of ZnO NCs in the quantum confinement regime. 27 , 28 , 29 Recently, wet-organometallic approaches to prepare high-quality ZnO NCs 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 have emerged as a promising alternative to sol-gel procedures. While organometallic methods are more time-consuming and require a more specialized set of tools, their superiority over the classical inorganic wet-chemical process for the preparation of stable and well-passivated quantum-sized ZnO crystals has already been well-documented, e.g.…”