Photo-Degradation Study of CdTe Nanocrystals by Fluorescence Measurement

The photo-degradation of green-, yellow-, orange- and red-emitting CdTe nanocrystals (NCs) in sol–gel SiO2 films was investigated quantitatively by measuring the PL efficiency as a function of the irradiation intensity. The degradation behaviors of the NCs depended strongly on the particle size and the surface state. Green- and yellow-emitting CdTe NCs exhibited a red-shifted PL peak wavelength and decreased PL efficiency after irradiation. In contrast, the PL peak wavelength of red-emitting CdTe NCs remained unchange and their PL efficiency increased. Furthermore, the degraded degree of green-emitting NCs depended linearly on the irradiation intensity \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \left( {{\text{rate}}\,{\text{constant}}\,{k_{{1}}} = \left( {{1}.{1}0\pm 0.0{4}} \right) \times {1}{0^{{ - {6}}}}\,{\text{photon}}} \right) $$\end{document}, whereas hat of red-emitting NCs showed a quadratic dependence \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \left( {{\text{rate}}\,{\text{constant}}\,{k_{{2}}} = \left( {{2}.{26}\pm 0.{1}} \right) \times {1}{0^{{ - {26}}}}\left( {{\text{c}}{{\text{m}}^{{2}}}\,{\text{s}}} \right)/{\text{photon}}} \right) $$\end{document} at room temperature. This is ascribed to the different surface state of green- and red-emitting CdTe NCs.