MEASUREMENT OF NANOMETER SCALE CADMIUMSELENIDE NANOCRYSTALS AND CLUSTER MOLECULES

High performance Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) has been used to determine the hydrodynamic diameters of CdSe nanocrystals as well as CdSe cluster molecules in a size range of 1 to 10 nm (Eichh(o)fer et al., 2001).The method enables the determination of their particle size, including their ligand shells, in solution. The results are consistent with the blue shift of the absorption bands, as well as Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) experiments.The sizes of the cluster molecules were estimated from space filling models constructed from the results of a single crystal X-ray structure determination. DLS gave comparable results for the size of both types of compound, indicating that it is potentially an important additional measurement technique to TEM, which uses harsh measurement conditions,and to powder X-ray diffraction, which is difficult to interpret below 5 nm.