Facile fabrication of chalcogenide nanoparticles

Nanotechnology is expected to be the basis of many of the main technological innovations of the twenty first century. Research and development in this field is growing rapidly throughout the world. A major output of this activity is the development of new materials in the nanometre scale. In this thesis, primarily, a novel fabrication of metal chalcogenides in the nano region is presented. The synthetic route is possible in less than 2 minutes in an aqueous based system using mercury nitrate and a sulfide precursor; which has a rate of reaction almost tenfold quicker than previous literature. To stabilise the compound, a range of surfactants and solvents were used in order to form monodispersed colloidal chalcogenide solutions. Using this approach, it is shown for the first time that metal chalcogenides can be solution-stabilised for greater than 2 minutes using Nafion®. This thesis highlights the ways in which the newly found method of synthesis for metal chalcogenides can be extended onto a range of salts such as cadmium sulfide and bismuth sulfide. Nafion was also extended and implemented in stabilising these salts to show that the method is extendable to a wide range of solutions. This has so far eradicated the problem of coalescing in group II- VI semiconductors maintaining their 1:1 ratio (metal: precursor) ultimately maintaining their unique properties which is the basis behind their roles. Finally, the attachment of siRNA onto a well-known nanostructure was explored.