Synthesis, characterization and electrochemical characterization of lead selenide sub-micron particles capped with a benzoate ligand and prepared at different temperatures

Semiconductor materials offer several potential benefits as active elements in the development of harvesting-energy conversion technologies. In particular, lead selenide (PbSe) semiconductors have been used and proposed to design solar energy harvesting devices, IR sensors, FET devices, etc. Lead salts have drawn particular attention from the applied and fundamental research communities due to their exceptionally strong quantum confinement effects. Several syntheses of PbSe have been proposed using long chain surfactants to allow the formation of particles and nanoparticles. Here we present a synthesis using benzoic acid as the capping ligand in ambient atmosphere. Although the particles are not in nanometric size, we compare the crystal structure (using x-ray powder diffraction data), the near infrared and mid-infrared absorption properties of PbSe using oleic acid as the capping ligand with PbSe using benzoic acid as the capping ligand. The new synthetized particles were shown to have similar crystal structure and absorb light in the near infrared region at 1410 nm. We also performed cyclic voltammetry of these particles drop-casted in the surface of a glassy carbon electrode. The particles showed electrochemical behavior with an oxidation peak near (−402 ± 5 mV) versus Ag/AgCl reference electrode. The particles seem to form a polymeric film at the surface of a glassy carbon electrode. (paper)