Host-guest chemistry for tuning colloidal solubility, self-organization and photoconductivity of inorganic-capped nanocrystals.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26647828.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10142 and PMC identifier 4682102.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Colloidal inorganic nanocrystals (NCs), functionalized with inorganic capping ligands, such as metal chalcogenide complexes (MCCs), have recently emerged as versatile optoelectronic materials. As-prepared, highly charged MCC-capped NCs are dispersible only in highly polar solvents, and lack the ability to form long-range ordered NC superlattices. Here we report a simple and general methodology, based on host-guest coordination of MCC-capped NCs with macrocyclic ethers (crown ethers and cryptands), enabling the solubilization of inorganic-capped NCs in solvents of any polarity and improving the ability to form NC superlattices. The corona of organic molecules can also serve as a convenient knob for the fine adjustment of charge transport and photoconductivity in films of NCs. In particular, high-infrared-photon detectivities of up to 3.3 × 10(11) Jones with a fast response (3 dB cut-off at 3 kHz) at the wavelength of 1,200 nm were obtained with films of PbS/K3AsS4/decyl-18-crown-6 NCs.