Improvement of monodispersity and shape symmetry of silica shell for PbS quantum dots by introducing surface silanization and adjusting reverse micelle size

Increasing the thickness of the quantum dot silica coating layer reduces monodispersity and shape symmetry. This paper reports three effective ways to solve this problem and achieve a large silica-coated QDs, i.e., proper silanization on the QD surface, control of reverse micelle size by adjusting the amount of QD solvent, and two-step formation of silica shell. Proper substitution of ligands on the QD surface in the early stages of silica shell formation was important for uniform coating reaction. An amount of toluene as QD solvent determined the size of reverse micelles during the silica shell formation. There was an optimum combination of inverse micelle size and silica shell size to obtain silica-coated QDs with good monodispersity and high shape symmetry. We succeeded in growing the thick silica shell with expanding reverse micelle size by additionally supplying toluene with the raw material using the optimum silica-coated QDs as growth nucleus