Size-selective high-yield growth of lead telluride (PbTe) nanocrystals using a chemical vapor deposition technique.

Lead telluride (PbTe) nanocrystals have been synthesized using a chemical vapor deposition technique. The size-selective precipitation mechanism enables relatively good control of the particle size distribution by variation of the heating temperature, the Ar gas flow rate, and an admixture with Au particles. As the result, a high yield of several hundred milligrams of nanocrystals that exhibit rather narrow size distributions of 100, 200, and 600 nm have been obtained. X-ray diffraction studies confirm the PbTe crystal structure and in addition find that the lattice constant monotonically increases with diminishing particle size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]