In this study, water-dispersible ZnS:Mn nanocrystals were synthesized by capping the surface with conventional and simple structured amino acid ligands: L-Glycine and L-Alanine. The ZnS:Mn-Gly and ZnS:Mn-Ala nanocrystal powders were characterized by XRD, HR-TEM, EDXS, ICP-AES, and FT-IR spectroscopy. The optical properties were measured by UV-Visible and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The PL spectra for the ZnS:Mn-Gly and ZnS:Mn-Ala showed broad emission peaks at 599 nm and 607 nm with PL efficiencies of 6.5% and 7.8%, respectively. The measured average particle size from the HR-TEM images were 6.4 ± 0.8 nm (ZnS:Mn-Gly) and 4.1 ± 0.5 nm (ZnS:Mn-Ala), which were also supported by Debye-Scherrer calculations. In addition, the degree of aggregation of the nanocrystals in aqueous solutions were measured by a hydrodynamic light scattering method, which showed formation of sub-micrometer size aggregates for both ZnS:Mn-Gly (273 ± 94 nm) and ZnS:Mn-Ala (233 ± 34 nm) in water due to the intermolecular attraction between the capping amino acids molecules. Finally, the cytotoxic effects of ZnS:Mn-Gly and ZnS:Mn-Ala nanocrsystals over the growth of wild type E. coli were investigated. As a result, no toxicity was shown for the ZnS:Mn-Gly nanocrystal in the colloidal concentration region from 1 µg/mL to 1000 µg/mL, while ZnS:MnAla showed significant toxicity at 100 µg/mL.

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RGB light emitting ZnSe based nanocrystals: ZnSe (blue), ZnSe:Cu (green) and ZnSe:Mn (red) were synthesized by capping the surface of the nanocrystals with oleic acid. The obtained nanocrystal powders were characterized by using XRD, HR-TEM, ICP-AES, FT-IR, and FT-Raman spectroscopies. The optical properties were also measured by UV/Vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. The PL spectra showed broad emission peaks at 471 nm (ZnSe), 530 nm (ZnSe:Cu) and 665 nm (ZnSe:Mn), with relative PL efficiencies in the range of 0.7% to 5.1% compared to a reference organic dye standard. The measured average particle sizes from the HR-TEM images for those three nanocrystals were 4.5 nm on average, which were also supported well by the Debye-Scherrer calculations. The elemental compositions of the ZnSe based nanocrystals were determined by ICP-AES analyses. Finally, the drawn CIE diagram showed the color coordinates of (0.15, 0.16) for ZnSe, (0.22, 0.57) for ZnSe:Cu, and (0.62, 0.35) for ZnSe:Mn respectively, which were fairly well matched to that of the RGB color standards.

Water-dispersible ZnS:Mn nanocrystals were synthesized by capping the surface of the nanocrystal with O-(2-Aminoethyl)polyethylene glycol (PEG-NH 2 , Mw = 10,000 g/mol) and O-(2-Carboxyethyl)polyethylene glycol (PEG-COOH, Mw = 10,000 g/mol) molecules. The modified PEG capped ZnS:Mn nanocrystal powders were thoroughly characterized by XRD, HR-TEM, EDXS, ICP-AES and FT-IR spectroscopy. The optical properties were also measured by UV/Vis and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. The PL spectra showed broad emission peaks at 600 nm with similar PL efficiencies of 7.68% (ZnS:Mn-PEG-NH2) and 9.18% (ZnS:Mn-PEG-COOH) respectively. The measured average particle sizes for the modified PEG capped ZnS:Mn nanocrystals by HR-TEM images were 5.6 nm (ZnS:Mn-PEG-NH2) and 6.4 nm (ZnS:Mn-PEG-COOH), which were also supported by Debye-Scherrer calculations. In addition, biological toxicity effects of the nanocrystals over the growth of wild type E. coli were investigated. They showed no biological toxicity to E. coli until very high concentration dosage of 1 mg/mL of the both nanocrystal samples.

Anti-reflective (AR) coatings are popular because they offer high durability with effective reflectance and glare reduction, and they can endure both physical and environmental damage. Magnesium fluoride (MgF 2 ) has been used as a nanoparticle coating on AR coating materials by many researchers because they exhibit high transmittance and antireflection characteristics in the visible region, due to its low refractive index. When using MgF 2 nanoparticles on a coated AR film, however, a binder is needed to improve abrasion resistance because the binding strength between particles is weak. In this study, AR coating films were prepared by adding MgTFA as a precursor to improve the adhesion resistance of the AR coating films. The AR coating films were characterized by UV-Vis, XRD, TEM, as well as viscosity and abrasion tests. The binder added to MgF 2 to improve the bonding strength between the particles showed excellent durability. The MgF 2 with added binder had a stronger film strength than a binderless MgF 2 film, even at low drying temperatures. It also exhibited lower reflectance. These characteristics are expected to be valuable for camera lenses, for thin films that require high light extraction efficiency, and in anti-reflection films on solar cell surfaces.