The Strain Effects and Interfacial Defects of Large ZnSe/ZnS Core/Shell Nanocrystals

Zhiwei Long, Gaoling Yang, Ruiwen Shao, Zhuo Chen, Yang Liu, Ronghui Liu*, Haizheng Zhong*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The shell growth of large ZnSe/ZnS nanocrystals(is of great importance in the pursuit of pure-blue emitters for display applications, however, suffers from the challenges of spectral blue-shifts and reduced photoluminescence quantum yields. In this work, the ZnS shell growth on different-sized ZnSe cores is investigated. By controlling the reactivity of Zn and S precursors, the ZnS shell growth can be tuned from defect-related strain-released to defect-free strained mode, corresponding to the blue- and red-shifts of resultant nanocrystals respectively. The shape of strain-released ZnSe/ZnS nanocrystals can be kept nearly spherical during the shell growth, while the shape of strained nanocrystals evolutes from spherical into island-like after the critical thickness. Furthermore, the strain between ZnSe core and ZnS shell can convert the band alignment from type-I into type-II core/shell structure, resulting in red-shifts and improved quantum yield. By correlating the strain effects with interfacial defects, a strain-released shell growth model is proposed to obtain large ZnSe/ZnS nanocrystals with isotropic shell morphology.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2306602
JournalSmall
Volume20
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jan 2024

Keywords

  • ZnSe/ZnS nanocrystals
  • blue emitters
  • core–shell structures
  • large size nanocrystals
  • shell growth mechanism

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Long, Z., Yang, G., Shao, R., Chen, Z., Liu, Y., Liu, R., & Zhong, H. (2024). The Strain Effects and Interfacial Defects of Large ZnSe/ZnS Core/Shell Nanocrystals. Small, 20(4), Article 2306602. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202306602