Phys.org May 17, 2023
Colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) have shown remarkable promise for optoelectronics, energy harvesting, photonics, and biomedical imaging. In addition to optimizing quantum confinement, the current challenge is to obtain a better understanding of the critical processing steps and their influence on the evolution of structural motifs. Through computational simulations and electron microscopy an international team of researchers (UK, France, South Korea, China) has shown that nanofaceting can occur during nanocrystal synthesis from a Pb-poor environment in a polar solvent. This could explain the curved interfaces and the olivelike-shaped NCs observed experimentally when these conditions were employed. Furthermore, the wettability of the PbS NCs solid film could be further modified via stoichiometry control, which impacted the interface band bending and processes such as multiple junction deposition and interparticle epitaxial growth. According to the researchers their results suggest that nanofaceting in NCs can become an inherent advantage when used to modulate band structures beyond what is traditionally possible in bulk crystals… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Graphical abstract. Credit: Nano Lett. 2023, 23, 6, 2277–2286, March 13, 2023Â