Electron Transfer Reactions in Colloidal Quantum Dot-Ligand Complexes

This thesis describes a quantitative analysis of the chemical composition of colloidal II-VI quantum dot (QD)-ligand complexes and transient absorption experiments analyzing the rates of electron transfer reactions in these complexes functionalized with redox active ligands. Chemical analysis reveals that phosphonate impurities in the surfactants used to synthesize CdSe QDs are the dominant ligands on the surface of the QDs, and these phosphonate impurities cause size-dependent Cd-enrichment of the QD surface. A study of the adsorption equilibrium of solution-phase CdS quantum dots and acid-derivatized viologen ligands (V2+) reveals that the structure of the surfaces of the QDs depends on the concentration of the QDs. A new model based on the Langmuir isotherm that treats both the number of adsorbed ligands per QD and the number of available binding sites per QD as binomially-distributed quantities is described. Transient absorption spectroscopy of solution-phase mixtures of colloidal CdS QDs and V2+ indicates electron transfer occurs from the conduction band of the QD to the LUMO of V2+. The rate constant for photoinduced electron transfer (PET) is independent of the number of methylene groups in the alkyl chain on the acid-derivatized viologen. The insensitivity of the electron transfer rate constant to the length of the functional groups on the viologen suggests a van der Waals (vdW) pathway for PET, where the electron bypasses the alkylcarboxylate and tunnels through the orbitals of the QD and of the bipyridinium core. The rate of PET from colloidal CdSe quantum dots (QDs) to oxo-centered triruthenium clusters (Ru 3O) depends on the structure of the chemical headgroup by which the Ru3O clusters adsorb to the QDs. Complexes comprising QDs and Ru 3O clusters adsorbed through a pyridine-4-carboxylic acid ligand have a PET rate constant of (4.9 ± 0.9)×109 s -1 whereas complexes comprising QDs and Ru3O clusters adsorbed through a 4-mercaptopyridine ligand have an intrinsic PET rate constant of (36 ± 7)×109 s-1. The difference in the observed rates of PET for the two complexes is attributed to a difference in donor-acceptor electronic coupling.