Facile Synthesis of Silver Chalcogenide (Ag2E; E = Se, S, Te) Semiconductor Nanocrystals

A general, one-pot, single-step method for producing colloidal silver chalcogenide (Ag2E; E = Se, S, Te) nanocrystals is presented, with an emphasis on Ag2Se. The method avoids exotic chemicals, high temperatures, and high pressures and requires only a few minutes of reaction time. While Ag2S and Ag2Te are formed in their low-temperature monoclinic phases, Ag2Se is obtained in a metastable tetragonal phase not observed in the bulk.