Bereket Zekarias, Luis Pablo Arriaga Gonzalez, Olivia A De Luca, Andrew Kelly, Kevin Qian, Eric A Riesel, Connor Orrison, Dong Hee Son, Evripidis Michail, Matthew Y. Sfeir, Rachel N Austin, Jonathan S. Owen, Makeda A Tekle-Smith
-doped CdS/ZnS quantum dots, in which surface stearate ligands are replaced with ligands that form ion pairs, are stable photocatalysts capable of reducing a variety of aryl chloride substrates, defluorinating fluorinated aromatic compounds, and facilitating the formation of new C-C bonds. Enhanced activity of the electrostatically stabilized quantum dot dispersions in polar solutions is observed at very low catalyst loadings (0.0005 mol %). The full scope of the reactions studied points to the importance of engineering quantum dot surface chemistry to control the reactivity afforded by hot electrons generated by multiphoton absorption and Auger upconversion.