Discontinuous Growth of II−VI Semiconductor Nanocrystals from Different Materials

We report about the synthesis of II−VI semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) that grow in discrete steps. CdS, CdTe, ZnSe, and ZnO NCs were synthesized in analogy to a method we recently developed for the discontinuous growth of CdSe NCs. Because of the similar growth conditions, the NCs of these different materials can be directly compared. Also, CdS NCs with Hg impurities showed discontinuous growth. From all materials, we could isolate fractions of NCs of different sizes via size-selective precipitation and characterize their optical and structural properties.