Tunable near-infrared luminescence of PbSe quantum dots for multigas analysis.

Multigas sensing is highly demanded in the fields of environmental monitoring, industrial production, and coal mine security. Three near-infrared emission wavelengths from PbSe quantum dots (QDs) were used to analyze the concentration of three gases simultaneously through direct absorption spectroscopy, including acetylene (C2H2), methane (CH4), and ammonia (NH3). The corresponding lower detection limits for the three gases were 20, 100, and 20 ppm, respectively, with an accuracy of 2%. This study demonstrates that QDs with tunable emissions have great potential for simultaneous and uninterfered multiplex gas analysis and detection due to the advantages of the easy tunability of multiplex emitting wavelengths from QDs.