Formation of colloidal alloy semiconductor CdTeSe magic-size clusters at room temperature

Alloy semiconductor magic-size clusters (MSCs) have received scant attention and little is known about their formation pathway. Here, we report the synthesis of alloy CdTeSe MSC-399 (exhibiting sharp absorption peaking at 399 nm) at room temperature, together with an explanation of its formation pathway. The evolution of MSC-399 at room temperature is detected when two prenucleation-stage samples of binary CdTe and CdSe are mixed, which are transparent in optical absorption. For a reaction consisting of Cd, Te, and Se precursors, no MSC-399 is observed. Synchrotron-based in-situ small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) suggests that the sizes of the two samples and their mixture are similar. We argue that substitution reactions take place after the two binary samples are mixed, which result in the formation of MSC-399 from its precursor compound (PC-399). The present study provides a room-temperature avenue to engineering alloy MSCs and an in-depth understanding of their probable formation pathway.