Mahzad Mirzaei - Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology Research Institute, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Reza Khanbabaie - Department of Physics, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Mohsen Jahanshahi - Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Nanotechnology Research Institute, Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran
Ghasem Najafpour Darzi - Faculty of Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology Research Lab., Babol University of Technology, Babol, Iran

Recently, safety concerns over the handling of nanomaterials have become an important issue. The aim ofthe present study was to optimize the key parameters in the hydrothermal synthesis of CuInS2 quantumdots (QDs) as a non-toxic alternative to the cadmium-based QDs, that historically had dominated theliterature. Response surface methodology (RSM) in combination with eliminate the D-optimal design wasapplied to optimize the synthesis and evaluate the Photoluminescence (PL) intensity as the responsewhich is described by a reduced quadratic equation. The relationship between the PL intensity andindependent variables (ligand/precursor, reaction time, reaction temperature, pH, and precursors ratio)was investigated using reduced quadratic polynomial equation. The produced QDs in the optimumcondition were analyzed by UV-Vis, FESEM, and FTIR. The results showed that the nanoparticles havea high PL intensity and a red shift in both emission and absorption spectra which is a splendid pointfor their applications, especially in bioimaging. The interaction between variables was not significantand the temperature was the most effective variable of PL intensity. A good agreement between modelpredictedand experimental data confirmed the correlated model.

CuInS2 QDs, Optimization, Response Surface Methodology, D-Optimal Design