Abstract: | This work gives the evidence of the lattice contraction in CdSe nanocrystals (NCs) grown in a glass matrix. The CdSe NCs were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical absorption (OA), and Raman spectroscopy. The average size of CdSe NCs can be estimated by AFM images. Using the OA spectra and the effective‐mass approximation, it was also possible to estimate the average sizes of CdSe NCs, which agree very well with the AFM data. These results showed that the CdSe NCs grow with increasing time of heat treatment. The blue shift of the longitudinal optical (LO) modes and surface optical (SO) phonon modes with an increase in the average radius of the NCs, shown in the Raman spectra, was explained by the lattice contraction in CdSe NCs caused by thermodynamic interactions at the interface with the host glass matrix. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |