Optical and Structural Properties of CuxS Quantum Dots Concerning H2O/Ethanol Solvent Ratio

Sammanfattning: Nanotechnology, one of the most interesting sciences today will no doubt have an enourmous impact on tomorrow's society and industry. One of the most interesting nanomaterial that has been discovered is the semiconductor quantum dot (QD). This material shows interesting novel properties such as a size-dependent band gap, which is an effect caused by the quantum confinement effect in all three dimensions. Due to this phenomenon the absorption spectrum can be tuned to the desired value by adjusting the size of the QD. This thesis aims to investigate how the solvent ratio of H2O/Ethanol affects the optical and structural properties of copper sulfide QDs manufactured in a chemical synthesis way using modern microwave heating. The process of manufacturing QDs using chemical synthesis often involve a capping-agent to prevent the QDs from agglomerate into bigger structures. In this case one of the most common amino acids will be used and briefly investigated. Due to the small size the characteristics of nanomaterials must be investigated with sophisticated instruments and the QD is not an exception. In this work, the transmission electron microscope (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) and ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscope are utilized to determine the size and stoichiometrics of the particles made in the synthesis.