Structure and vacancy distribution in copper telluride nanoparticles influence plasmonic activity in the near-infrared.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28358039.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms14925 and PMC identifier 5379103.
- 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
Copper chalcogenides find applications in different domains including photonics, photothermal therapy and photovoltaics. CuTe nanocrystals have been proposed as an alternative to noble metal particles for plasmonics. Although it is known that deviations from stoichiometry are a prerequisite for plasmonic activity in the near-infrared, an accurate description of the material and its (optical) properties is hindered by an insufficient understanding of the atomic structure and the influence of defects, especially for materials in their nanocrystalline form. We demonstrate that the structure of Cu<sub>1.5±x</sub>Te nanocrystals can be determined using electron diffraction tomography. Real-space high-resolution electron tomography directly reveals the three-dimensional distribution of vacancies in the structure. Through first-principles density functional theory, we furthermore demonstrate that the influence of these vacancies on the optical properties of the nanocrystals is determined. Since our methodology is applicable to a variety of crystalline nanostructured materials, it is expected to provide unique insights concerning structure-property correlations.