CdS nanoparticles: structural and energetical correlations

It is well known that the quantum confinement effects are closely related to the existence of different behavior for the same material composition. Due to the reduced size scale of the nanoparticles, the most part of their forming atoms are at the particle surface, which needs to be as stable as possible, to avoid phenomena such as dissolution and photodegradation. This way, methodologies for semiconductor nanoparticles obtention shall take into account the size, shape and energy of the final product. However, the relationship between these parameters is not yet clearly understood for nanometric systems, specially for those ones which are smaller than 20 nm. In this work, we present and discuss experimental and theoretical data obtained for nanoparticles of the semiconductor cadmium sulfide (CdS), in order to contribute for the understanding of the correlation between energetical and structural properties of nanometric systems in the quantum confinement regime.