DOI: https://doi.org/10.9767/bcrec.20454

Effect of Surface Stabilizers on the Optical Properties of ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS Nanocrystals

1Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City 70000, Viet Nam

2Institute of Materials Science, Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, 18 Hoang Quoc Viet, Hanoi 10000, Viet Nam

Received: 26 Jul 2025; Revised: 8 Oct 2025; Accepted: 9 Oct 2025; Available online: 12 Oct 2025; Published: 26 Dec 2025.
Editor(s): Istadi Istadi
Open Access Copyright (c) 2025 by Authors, Published by BCREC Publishing Group
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Abstract

In this study, we produced nano-sized, spherical ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS in a non-toxic aqueous solvent with surface stabilizers such as 3-mercaptopropionic acid (MPA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and starch. These surface stabilizers aid to prevent agglomeration and passivation, thereby stabilizing the nanoparticle surface. ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS nanocrystals (NCs) are cubic in structure. Changing the surface stabilizer and doping Mn metal does not alter the structure of the ZnSe base material, but it boosts fluorescence efficiency by 2.2 - 3.9 times. The fluorescence efficiency of ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS MPA NCs using MPA stabilizer is 73.95%, which is higher than the fluorescence efficiency of ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS Starch NCs (57.35%) using Starch stabilizer and higher than the fluorescence efficiency of ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS PEG NCs (41.72%) using PEG stabilizer. ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS MPA NCs are originally assessed for their potential use in biomedical applications. Copyright © 2025 by Authors, Published by BCREC Publishing Group. This is an open access article under the CC BY-SA License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0).

Keywords: Acid 3-mercaptopropionic; ZnSe/ZnS:Mn/ZnS; Surface stabilizers; Polyethylene glycol (PEG); Starch
Funding: Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City under contract 23.1HH03

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