Colloidal Europium-doped In2O3 nanocrystals were successfully prepared in a noncoordinating solvent using indium (III) and europium (III) acetates as precursors. The concentration of doped europium was varied up to 2.88 at%. Linear electrogyration induced by coherent circularly-polarized light was observed from samples in which europium-doped In2O3 nanocrystals were embedded in photopolymer oligoethracryalte matrices. The result on ˜2.5 at% europium-doped sample shows that the maximal linear electrogyration could reach to ˜12 deg./mm at an electric field of 120V/cm for He-Ne laser.

ZnTe quantum dots (QDs) have been very attractive because of their potential applications in optoelectronic devices operating in the blue-green region of the spectrum. This paper describes a convenient one-step synthesis of high-quality ZnTe QDs in high-temperature organic solution with high yield. Anhydrous zinc chloride was dissolved in phenyl ether under argon protection and oleic amine was used as coordinating agent. Complex solution of metal tellurium in trioctylphosphine (TOP) was injected into the hot reaction mixture as a source of tellurium. The reaction was complete in several minutes and the resulting QDs were isolated by centrifugation and re-dispersed in hexane. The produced spherical ZnTe QDs are monodispersed and their sizes could be controlled simply by varying the growth temperature. The morphology and phase structure were investigated using TEM and XRD. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra were also studied and quantum size effects were observed as well.

III-V semiconductor nanocrystals are of considerable interest due to their extensive applications in the optoelectronic and biomedical fields. In order to meet the practical use, the convenient and scalable production of III-V narrow-disperse nanocrystals is inspiring. We report an efficient and rapid method of preparing highly monodisperse InP nanocrystals using a wet-chemical redox synthetic approach with a noncoordinating solvent, employing organic reducing agent LiBH(CH2CH3)3 and yellow phosphor. As advantages of this approach, reaction temperature is relatively low (80°C-120°C) and reaction time is less than 2 hours. Our characterization shows that the photoluminescence properties of InP nanocrystals are highly dependent on the particle size.

A picosecond laser flash-heating technique is combined with ultrafast spectroscopic probe diagnostics to investigate the fundamental mechanisms of nanoenergetic material performance. The systems studied include Al nanoparticle aggregates in nitrocellulose (NC) oxidizer, size-selected Al nanoparticles in NC and in Teflon oxidizers, and nanoparticle thermites consisting of 30 nm Al and nanometric MoO3. The time-dependence of reactions between Al and the oxidizer on the picosecond to nanosecond time scales are studied using coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) to monitor oxidizer consumption. The time-dependence of energy release is measured using fast optical spectroscopy. The space-dependence of chemical reaction propagation over 100 to 1500 nm distances is studied using the average distance between nanoparticles as a ruler. The distance of reaction propagation from a flash-heated Al nanoparticle increases linearly with energy, which is explained by a hydrodynamic model.