Incorporation of a highly luminescent semiconductor quantum dot in ZrO2-SiO2 hybrid sol-gel glass film

In this paper we describe a method for transferring semiconductor quantum dots, produced in non-polar solvents by an organometallic approach, into sol–gel matrices. ZrO2–SiO2 hybrid sol–gel glass films have been homogeneously doped with different semiconductor quantum dots (CdSe, CdSe@CdS and CdSe@ZnS). Both the absorption and the emission properties of the semiconductor nanocrystals are only slightly affected by the incorporation into the sol–gel matrix. The doped films showed sufficiently high refractive index for the realization of planar waveguides.