ABSTRACT
All nanoparticles exhibit a fundamental property known as “quantum con nement” (Bawendi et al. 1990), due to the modi- cation of the energy states of electrons con ned in a very small volume. Quantum con nement is dependent on the con nement volume, that is, on the size of the nanoparticle. is means that the electronic properties of CdSe nanoparticles can be tailored by controlling their size. As a consequence, CdSe nanoparticles have size-tunable absorption and luminescence spectra. is characteristic makes them particularly attractive to be employed in optical devices, such as in light-emitting diodes that have to cover a large part of the visible spectrum (Coe et al. 2002, Bowers et al. 2005). Along the same lines, CdSe nanoparticles have already proved to be excellent components for a variety of applications, such as in optically pumped lasers (Tessler et al. 2002), photovoltaic cells (Greenham et al. 1996, Klimov 2003), telecommunications (Harrison et al. 2000), and biomedicine as chemical markers (Bruchez et al. 1998, Michalet et al. 2005).
