Synthesis and Characterization of Metal Doped-InP Clusters and Nanostructures

Abstract

Understanding and controlling the nucleation stage before the continuous growth is important for nanoparticle science. In semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dot (QD) syntheses, 1-2 nm sized clusters are often formed before the continuous growth of nanostructures. InP QDs attract great interest because they do not have heavy metals and the band gap can be tuned to visible range and thus can be well suited for display materials. We report synthesis and applications of metal doped InP clusters. Various clusters exhibit sharp excitonic absorption in UV-Vis region. Their mass was elucidated using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-offlight( MALDI-TOF) spectroscopy. Their chemical composition and dopant quantity was determined by ICP-AES analysis. Various InP nanostructures that included branched InP nanostructures were synthesized using the undoped and metal doped InP clusters as a precursor. TEM investigations revealed branch diameters of the lateral dimension of 2-4 nm and the length of 5-20 nm. X-ray diffraction(XRD) patterns of branched nanostructures match the zinc blende structure of InP. Also the synthesis strategy by mixing two kinds of clusters was tried to synthesize InP nanostructure and their emission wavelength could be controlled by changing reaction temperature.