I've often seen academics abbreviate their (highly uncommon) jargon in their papers and, short of a very firm length requirement, I don't understand why. My brain has to stop and parse it out every time I see it if the acronym isn't super common, and if you just prefer "QDs" to "quantum dots" because it's less typing then a) maybe writing papers shouldn't be the cornerstone of your profession and b) this is pretty much exactly what LaTeX macros are for.