Photostable epoxy polymerized carbon quantum dots luminescent thin films and the performance study

High photostable epoxy polymerized carbon quantum dots (C-dots) luminescent thin films were prepared and their performances were compared with the CdTe quantum dots (QDs). First, water soluble C-dots (lambda em = 543.60 nm) were synthesized. Poly (ethylene glycol) diglycidyl ether (PEG) and diaminooctane were used as the polymer matrix to make the epoxy resin films. FT-IR spectra showed that there were vibration at 3448 cm (1) and 1644 cm (1) which contributed to -OH and -NH respectively. SEM observations showed that the polymerizations of the films were uniform and there were no structure defects. Mechanical tests showed the tensile modulus of C-dots composite films were 4.6, 4.9, 6.4 and 7.8 MPa respectively with corresponding 0%, 1%, 2% and 5% mass fraction of C-dots, while the tensile modulus of CdTe QDs films were 4.6 MPa under the same mass fraction of CdTe QDs. Compared with semiconductor QDs, the decay of quantum yield were 5% and 10% for the C-dots and CdTe QDs, respectively. The pictures in the continuous irradiation of 48 h showed that the C-dots film was more photostable. This study provides much helpful and profound towards the fluorescent enhancement films in the field of flexible displays. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).