Preparation and Wide Tunable Band-Gap Energies of PbTe Nanocrystals Using Glycerin as a Capping Ligand

Abstract

PbTe nanocrystals (NCs) have been synthesized by a novel method at low temperature. Pb acetate being solved in glycerol and Te in TOP solution were used as the precursors for the preparation of PbTe nanocrystals. The as-prepared products were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UVvis absorption, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). These data, together with analysis of the absorption spectra, allowed us to observe the size dependence of the peaks in the absorption spectrum. The size-dependent optical spectra of the PbTe nanocrystals exhibits wide tunable band gap energies varying from UV visible range to near IR region, which corresponds to a huge blue shift of 3.0 eV in comparison to the bulk counterpart. Keywords: 1. PbTe nanocrystals, 2. optical properties, 3. wide tunable band gap, 4. microstructure