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. 2025 May 29;10(22):23214-23221.
doi: 10.1021/acsomega.5c01222. eCollection 2025 Jun 10.

Strongly Confined Bi2Se3 Quantum Dots via Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquids

Rajendra Subedi  1 , Matthew Burningham  1 , Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda  2 , Qiaohui Zhou  3 , Xin Lu  3 , Grégory Guisbiers  1
Affiliations

Strongly Confined Bi2Se3 Quantum Dots via Pulsed Laser Ablation in Liquids

Rajendra Subedi et al. ACS Omega. .

Abstract

Bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) is a binary compound displaying a strong spin-orbit coupling, resulting in a narrow bulk bandgap material with a gapless metallic surface. By shrinking the size of Bi2Se3 within the strong confinement regime, its optoelectronic properties changed drastically. To achieve this goal, strongly confined Bi2Se3 quantum dots (QDs) were produced by pulsed laser ablation in liquids (PLAL). The laser used for the synthesis was a nanosecond Nd/YAG laser emitting at 1064 nm and pulsing at ∼13 mJ/pulse. The irradiation of the bulk target was performed at 1 kHz in acetone and lasted 5 min. Finally, the Bi2Se3 QDs were spherical in shape with a diameter around 7 ± 3 nm and displaying an energy bandgap of 1.97 ± 0.19 eV.

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Figures

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(a) Sketch of the “top-ablation” PLAL setup used to synthesize Bi2Se3 QDs. This figure has been drawn by using Biorender. Inset: bulk Bi2Se3 target. (b) Photo: the left cuvette contains the acetone solvent only, while the right cuvette contains a colloid made of Bi2Se3 QDs synthesized by PLAL. (c) Zeta potential of colloid containing Bi2Se3 QDs. The colloidal stability is color-coded: highly unstable (red), relatively stable (orange), moderately stable (yellow), and highly stable (green).
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Size distribution of the Bi2Se3 QDs measured by (a) DLS and (b) STEM ADF. Inset figure (b) STEM image in annular dark field mode displaying the Bi2Se3 QDs.
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(a–d) EDXS elemental chemical mapping of the Bi2Se3 QDs. Bi and Se are indicated in red and blue, respectively.
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(a) STEM bright field image of a single Bi2Se3 QD. (b) FFT pattern of the corresponding Bi2Se3 QD displaying preferential (015) planes. (c) XRD pattern of the Bi2Se3 bulk target. (d) XRD pattern of Bi2Se3 QDs. The XRD peak positions were identified based on the crystallographic open database 9011965. The plane indexation corresponds to the Bi2Se3 rhombohedral crystalline structure. Inset: graph showing the (015) peak shift going from the bulk scale to the quantum scale.
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(a) Raman spectra of the bulk Bi2Se3 target, for reference purpose only. (b) Raman spectra of Bi2Se3 QDs. The three vibrational modes are indicated for both samples, and a shift can be noticed for each mode when going from the bulk scale to the quantum scale.
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(a) Absorbance spectra of the colloid. (b) Tauc plot displaying the energy bandgap of Bi2Se3 QDs around ∼1.98 eV. (c) PL spectra of the Bi2Se3 QDs determining the energy bandgap of Bi2Se3 QDs around ∼1.97 eV. (d) Graph comparing the energy bandgap of the Bi2Se3 QDs obtained in this work with the data available in the literature.
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Fluorescence image of Bi2Se3 QDs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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