Semiconductors, at the heart of electronic and optoelectronic devices, necessitate high-purity materials and expensive manufacturing processes. On the other hand, emerging applications frequently require a combination of the electronic and optical properties of inorganic semiconductors and cost-effective solution-based fabrication techniques suitable for industrial-scale manufacturing. Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as a versatile platform for integrating proven inorganic semiconductor materials into high-performance optoelectronic devices via solution-based fabrication methods at ambient temperatures rather than costly, ultra-high-vacuum, high-temperature device manufacturing processes in recent years.
Colloidal quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals with typical sizes ranging from 2 to 20 nm. They are made up of a crystalline inorganic semiconductor core surrounded by an organic molecule shell. Because of the presence of inorganic and organic constituents, these colloidal nanocrystals combine the chemical processibility of molecular compounds with the well-understood electronic and optical properties of semiconductor materials.
Colloidal quantum dots may enable conceptually new photoconversion strategies in the future due to the quantum-confined colloidal nanomaterials’ unique physical properties. In QDs, for example, charge carrier multiplication can produce multiple electron-hole pairs from a single absorbed photon.
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