Influence of Reaction Temperature on the Formation Process of ZnO Quantum Dots and the Optical Properties

ZnO quantum dots (QDs)with the sizes of 3.0–5.6 nm are synthesized by solution-phase method at different temperatures. We find that temperature has great influence on the size of ZnO QDs. The growth process is the most sensitive to temperature, and the process is well explained by Lifshitz-Slyozov-Wagner (LSW) model. By photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the quantum dots at different temperatures and reactive time, we come to a conclusion that ultraviolet emission is mainly due to surface defects, and the origination of green visible emission comes from the transition between the bottom of the conduction band and the level of O i.