Hue- and Chromaticity-Based Exploration of Surface Complexation-Induced Tunable Emission from Non-Luminescent Quantum Dots

Herein we report the use of a hue parameter of HSV (Hue, Saturation and Value) color space—in combination with chromaticity color coordinates—for exploring the complexation-induced luminescence color changes, ranging from blue to green to yellow to white, from a non-luminescent Fe-doped ZnS quantum dot (QD). Importantly, the surface complexation reaction helped a presynthesized non-luminescent Fe-doped ZnS QD to glow with different luminescence colors (such as blue, cyan, green, greenish-yellow, yellow) by virtue of the formation of various luminescent inorganic complexes (using different external organic ligands), while the simultaneous blue- and yellow-emitting complex formation on the surface of non-luminescent Fe-doped ZnS QD led to the generation of white light emission, with a hue mean value of 85 and a chromaticity of (0.28,0.33). Furthermore, the surface complexation-assisted incorporation of luminescence properties to a non-luminescent QD not only overcomes their restricted luminescence-based applications such as light-emitting, biological and sensing applications but also bring newer avenues towards unravelling the surface chemistry between QDs and inorganic complexes and the advantage of having an inorganic complex with QD for their aforementioned useful applications.