Aqueous-based synthesis of Cd-free and highly emissive Fe-doped ZnSe(S)/ZnSe(S) core/shell quantum dots with antibacterial activity.

The effective insertion of intentional impurities in direct aqueous preparation of doped QDs still needs a chemical route with well-designed strategy. The present work reports a facile, one-pot, and aqueous-based method for green synthesis of Fe-doped ZnSe(S)/ZnSe(S) core/shell QDs with improved emission intensity. In the proposed strategy, by using a sulfur rich ZnSe(S) shell, we can provide a wider band gap shell with low structural defects in the interface between core and shell. Utilization of combined co-nucleation and growth doping strategies along with increasing the shell refluxing time all are the chemo-physical tactics which led to high intensity dopant-related emission. The antibacterial activity of the as-prepared doped core/shell QDs was investigated using agar disk diffusion method. The results show, these QDs have a significant antibacterial activity against different pathogenic bacteria comparing with the conventional antibiotics. The facility of suggested aqueous route for reaching a dopant emission, the bio-compatibility and considerable antibacterial characteristics of present QDs, nominate them as good candidates in further biological applications.