A novel approach to coat silica on quantum dots: Forcing decomposition of tetraethyl orthosilicate in toluene at high temperature

The coating of silica (SiO2) on quantum dots (QDs) has been widely studied, because SiO2 can protect QDs from the damages of moisture, radiation, and heat. Conventional SiO2 coating methods for QDs are usually performed in aqueous or emulsion solutions, which require the addition of water for the hydrolysis of SiO2 precursors and lead to the photoluminescence (PL) quenching of QDs. To address this issue, a novel SiO2 coating approach on single...