Preparation and properties of high stability quantum dot-silica hybrid nanospheres

Abstract

The surface modification strategy is widely used to solve the problems of low stability, agglomeration, surface oxidation and photoluminescence quenching of quantum dots (QDs) in practical applications. However this method can easily destroys the surface ligands of QDs, increases defects even leads to a huge loss of fluorescence. In order to improve the stability of QDs, a new synthesis method of QD-silica hybrid nanospheres was proposed in this study. These QD-silica hybrid nanospheres are characterized by using mesoporous silica spheres (MSSs) as template, adsorbing QDs as one shell, and then coating a silica layer as another shell (named SQS). The template MSSs were functionalized by (3-mercaptopropyl) trimethoxysilane (MPTMS) in order to connect MSSs and QDs. After that, the QD-adsorbed silica spheres were coated with silica as the encapsulation layer by Stober method. The structure and morphology of SQS were analyzed by TEM. The effects of different contents of MPTMS and tetraethoxysilane(TEOS) were experimentally compared. Finally, it was found that the optimal contents of MPTMS and TEOS was 250μL and 1.5mL, respectively. The luminescence intensity of SQS samples could reach 2 times higher than that of pure QD solution. Meanwhile, SQS hybrid nanospheres could avoid the tiny spots inside the microstructure caused by QD aggregation and play a better role in dispersion.