Synthesis of chiral quantum dots and quantum dots for solar cells

Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor nanomaterials that have recently received enormous attention due to their appealing size-dependent electronic structure. Chirality in nanostructures is an intriguing property that could find applications in nanodevices but the rational synthesis of chiral nanostructures is still at a nascent stage. The aim of this thesis is first to access optically active quantum dots by post synthetic ligand exchange, which is an appealing approach for tuning the properties of quantum dots. QDs were synthesized in various sizes with achiral organic ligands as capping groups. The achiral organic ligands were replaced by chiral organic molecules to afford chiral QDs. CdSe and CdS QDs exhibited size-dependent chiroptical properties. Enantiomeric forms of optically active CdSe QDs exhibited mirror image circular dichroism (CD) and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with potential applications in chiral biosensing and chiroptical nanomaterials. The second part of the dissertation focuses on QDs with multifunctional ligands as potential sensitizers in QD solar cells.