Volume 222, 2020

Fast room-temperature functionalization of silicon nanoparticles using alkyl silanols

Abstract

Silicon nanoparticles (Si NPs) are a good alternative to conventional heavy metal-containing quantum dots in many applications, due to their low toxicity, low cost, and the high natural abundance of the starting material. Recently, much synthetic progress has been made, and crystalline Si NPs can now be prepared in a matter of hours. However, the passivation of these particles is still a time-consuming and difficult process, usually requiring high temperatures and/or harsh reaction conditions. In this paper, we report an easy method for the room-temperature functionalization of hydrogen-terminated Si NPs. Using silanol compounds, a range of functionalized Si NPs could be produced in only 1 h reaction time at room temperature. The coated NPs were fully characterized to determine the efficiency of binding and the effects of coating on the optical properties of the NPs. It was found that Si NPs were effectively functionalized, and that coated NPs could be extracted from the reaction mixture in a straightforward manner. The silanol coating increases the quantum yield of fluorescence, decreases the spectral width and causes a small (∼50 nm) blue-shift in both the excitation and emission spectra of the Si NPs, compared to unfunctionalized particles.

Graphical abstract: Fast room-temperature functionalization of silicon nanoparticles using alkyl silanols

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Additions and corrections

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
03 10 2019
Accepted
02 1 2020
First published
05 3 2020
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Faraday Discuss., 2020,222, 82-94

Fast room-temperature functionalization of silicon nanoparticles using alkyl silanols

A. F. J. van den Boom, S. P. Pujari, F. Bannani, H. Driss and H. Zuilhof, Faraday Discuss., 2020, 222, 82 DOI: 10.1039/C9FD00102F

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements