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Quantum dot

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Colloidal quantum dots irradiated with a UV light. Different sized quantum dots emit different color light due to quantum confinement. A quantum dot is a portion of matter (e.g., semiconductor) whose excitons are confined in all three spatial dimensions. Consequently, such materials have electronic properties intermediate between those of bulk semiconductors and those of discrete molecules.[1][2][3]

They were discovered at the beginning of the 1980s by Alexei Ekimov[4] in a glass matrix and by Louis E. Brus in colloidal solutions. The term "quantum dot" was coined by Mark Reed.[5] Researchers have studied quantum dots in transistors, solar cells, LEDs, and diode lasers. They have also investigated quantum dots as agents for medical imaging and hope to use them as qubits in quantum computing. Stated simply, quantum dots are semiconductors whose electronic characteristics are closely related to the size and shape of the individual crystal. Generally, the smaller the size of the crystal, the larger the band gap, the greater the difference in energy between the highest valence band and the lowest conduction band becomes, therefore more energy is needed to excite the dot, and concurrently, more energy is released when the crystal returns to its resting state. For example, in fluorescent dye applications, this equates to higher frequencies of light emitted after excitation of the dot as the crystal size grows smaller, resulting in a color shift from red to blue in the light emitted. In addition to such tuning, a main advantage with quantum dots is that, because of the high level of control possible over the size of the crystals produced, it is possible to have very precise control over the conductive properties of the material.[6] Quantum dots of different sizes can be assembled into a gradient multi-layer nanofilm.

Contents
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1 Quantum confinement in semiconductors 2 Production o 2.1 Colloidal synthesis o 2.2 Fabrication o 2.3 Viral assembly o 2.4 Electrochemical assembly o 2.5 Bulk-manufacture o 2.6 Cadmium-free quantum dots 3 Optical properties 4 Applications o 4.1 Computing o 4.2 Biology o 4.3 Photovoltaic devices o 4.4 Light emitting devices o 4.5 Photodetector devices 5 See also 6 References o 6.1 General references 7 External links

[edit] Quantum confinement in semiconductors

3D confined electron wave functions in a quantum dot. Here, rectangular and triangularshaped quantum dots are shown. Energy states in rectangular dots are more s-type and ptype. However, in a triangular dot the wave functions are mixed due to confinement symmetry. Main article: Potential well In a semiconductor crystal lattice, the electrons are squeezed together, since no two nearby electrons can share the exact same energy level according to Pauli exclusion principle, leading to quantum confinement. The energy level can then be modeled using particle in a box, which leads to the conclusion that the energy levels of the quantum dot is dependent on its size. When the size of the quantum dot is smaller than the critical characteristic length called the Exciton Bohr radius, the electrons crowding lead to the splitting of the original energy levels into smaller ones with smaller gaps between each successive level. The Exciton Bohr radius is larger than the Bohr radius due to the effect of dielectric screening and the influence of periodic lattice structure of the crystal. The quantum dots that have radii larger than the Exciton Bohr radius are said to be in the 'weak confinement regime' and the ones that have radii smaller than the Exciton Bohr radius are said to be in the 'strong confinement regime'. Thus, if the size of the quantum dot is small enough that the quantum confinement effects dominate(typically less than 10 nm), the electronic and optical properties change, and the fluorescent wavelength is determined by the size.

Splitting of energy levels for small quantum dots due to the quantum confinement effect. The horizontal axis is the radius, or the size, of the quantum dots and ab* is the Exciton Bohr radius. The fluorescence of the quantum dots is a result of exciting the valence electron with a certain energy(or wavelength) and the emission of lower energy in the form of photons as the excited electron return to the ground state combining with the hole. The energy of the emitted photon is determined by the size of the quantum dot due to quantum confinement effects. In a simplified model of the excitation, the energy of the emitted photon can be seen as a sum of the band gap energy between occupied level and unoccupied energy level, the confinement energies of the hole and the excited electron, and the bound energy of the exciton(the electron-hole pair):

Band gap energy The band gap can become smaller in the strong confinement regime where the size of the quantum dot is smaller than the Exciton Bohr radius (ab* in the figure) as the energy levels split up.

where ab is the Bohr radius=0.053 nm, m is the mass, is the reduced mass, and r is the size-dependent dielectric constant This results in the increase in the total emission energy(the sum of the energy levels in the smaller band gaps in the strong confinement regime is larger than the energy levels in the band gaps of the original levels in the weak confinement regime) and the emission at various wavelengths; which is precisely what happens in the sun, where the quantum confinement effects are completely dominant and the energy levels split up to the degree that the energy spectrum is almost continuous, thus emitting white light. Confinement energy

The exciton entity can be modeled using the particle in the box. The electron and the hole can be seen as hydrogen in the Bohr model with the hydrogen nucleus replaced by the hole of positive charge and negative electron mass. Then the energy levels of the exciton can be represented as the solution to the particle in a box at the ground level (n = 1) with the mass replaced by the reduced mass. Thus by varying the size of the quantum dot, the confinement energy of the exciton can be controlled. Bound exciton energy There is Coulomb attraction between the negatively charged electron and the positively charged hole. The negative energy involved in the attraction is proportional to Rydbergs energy and inversely proportional to square of the sizedependent dielectric constant[7] of the semiconductor. When the size of the semiconductor crystal is smaller than the Exciton Bohr radius, the Coulomb interaction must be modified to fit the situation. Therefore, the sum of these energies can be represented as:

where:

is the reduced mass a is the radius me is the free electron mass mh is the hole mass r is the size-dependent dielectric constant

Although the above equations were derived using simplifying assumptions, the implications are clear; the energy of the quantum dots are dependent on their size due to the quantum confinement effects, which dominate below the critical size leading to changes in the optical properties. This effect of quantum confinement on the quantum dots have been experimentally verified[8] and is a key feature of many emerging electronic structures.[9][10] Besides confinement in all three dimensions (i.e., a quantum dot), other quantum confined semiconductors include:

Quantum wires, which confine electrons or holes in two spatial dimensions and allow free propagation in the third. Quantum wells, which confine electrons or holes in one dimension and allow free propagation in two dimensions.

[edit] Production
There are several ways to confine excitons in semiconductors, resulting in different methods to produce quantum dots. In general, quantum wires, wells and dots are grown by advanced epitaxial techniques in nanocrystals produced by chemical methods or by ion implantation, or in nanodevices made by state-of-the-art lithographic techniques.[11]

[edit] Colloidal synthesis


Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals are synthesized from precursor compounds dissolved in solutions, much like traditional chemical processes. The synthesis of colloidal quantum dots is based on a three-component system composed of: precursors, organic surfactants, and solvents. When heating a reaction medium to a sufficiently high temperature, the precursors chemically transform into monomers. Once the monomers reach a high enough supersaturation level, the nanocrystal growth starts with a nucleation process. The temperature during the growth process is one of the critical factors in determining optimal conditions for the nanocrystal growth. It must be high enough to allow for rearrangement and annealing of atoms during the synthesis process while being low enough to promote crystal growth. Another critical factor that has to be stringently controlled during nanocrystal growth is the monomer concentration. The growth process of nanocrystals can occur in two different regimes, focusing and defocusing. At high monomer concentrations, the critical size (the size where nanocrystals neither grow nor shrink) is relatively small, resulting in growth of nearly all particles. In this regime, smaller particles grow faster than large ones (since larger crystals need more atoms to grow than small crystals) resulting in focusing of the size distribution to yield nearly monodisperse particles. The size focusing is optimal when the monomer concentration is kept such that the average nanocrystal size present is always slightly larger than the critical size. When the monomer concentration is depleted during growth, the critical size becomes larger than the average size present, and the distribution defocuses as a result of Ostwald ripening. There are colloidal methods to produce many different semiconductors. Typical dots are made of binary alloys such as cadmium selenide, cadmium sulfide, indium arsenide, and indium phosphide. Although, dots may also be made from ternary alloys such as cadmium selenide sulfide. These quantum dots can contain as few as 100 to 100,000 atoms within the quantum dot volume, with a diameter of 10 to 50 atoms. This corresponds to about 2 to 10 nanometers, and at 10 nm in diameter, nearly 3 million quantum dots could be lined up end to end and fit within the width of a human thumb. Large batches of quantum dots may be synthesized via colloidal synthesis. Due to this scalability and the convenience of benchtop conditions, colloidal synthetic methods are

promising for commercial applications. It is acknowledged[citation needed] to be the least toxic of all the different forms of synthesis.

[edit] Fabrication

Self-assembled quantum dots are typically between 5 and 50 nm in size. Quantum dots defined by lithographically patterned gate electrodes, or by etching on twodimensional electron gases in semiconductor heterostructures can have lateral dimensions exceeding 100 nm. Some quantum dots are small regions of one material buried in another with a larger band gap. These can be so-called core-shell structures, e.g., with CdSe in the core and ZnS in the shell or from special forms of silica called ormosil. Quantum dots sometimes occur spontaneously in quantum well structures due to monolayer fluctuations in the well's thickness. Self-assembled quantum dots nucleate spontaneously under certain conditions during molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metallorganic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE), when a material is grown on a substrate to which it is not lattice matched. The resulting strain produces coherently strained islands on top of a two-dimensional wetting layer. This growth mode is known as Stranski Krastanov growth. The islands can be subsequently buried to form the quantum dot. This fabrication method has potential for applications in quantum cryptography (i.e. single photon sources) and quantum computation. The main limitations of this method are the cost of fabrication and the lack of control over positioning of individual dots. Individual quantum dots can be created from two-dimensional electron or hole gases present in remotely doped quantum wells or semiconductor heterostructures called lateral quantum dots. The sample surface is coated with a thin layer of resist. A lateral pattern is then defined in the resist by electron beam lithography. This pattern can then be transferred to the electron or hole gas by etching, or by depositing metal electrodes (lift-off process) that allow the application of external voltages between the electron gas and the electrodes. Such quantum dots are mainly of interest for experiments and applications involving electron or hole transport, i.e., an electrical current. The energy spectrum of a quantum dot can be engineered by controlling the geometrical size, shape, and the strength of the confinement potential. Also, in contrast to atoms, it is relatively easy to connect quantum dots by tunnel barriers to conducting leads, which allows the application of the techniques of tunneling spectroscopy for their investigation.

The quantum dot absorption features correspond to transitions between discrete,threedimensional particle in a box states of the electron and the hole, both confined to the same nanometer-size box.These discrete transitions are reminiscent of atomic spectra and have resulted in quantum dots also being called artificial atoms.[12]

Confinement in quantum dots can also arise from electrostatic potentials (generated by external electrodes, doping, strain, or impurities).

[edit] Viral assembly


Lee et al. (2002) reported using genetically engineered M13 bacteriophage viruses to create quantum dot biocomposite structures.[13] As a background to this work, it has previously been shown that genetically engineered viruses can recognize specific semiconductor surfaces through the method of selection by combinatorial phage display. [14] Additionally, it is known that liquid crystalline structures of wild-type viruses (Fd, M13, and TMV) are adjustable by controlling the solution concentrations, solution ionic strength, and the external magnetic field applied to the solutions. Consequently, the specific recognition properties of the virus can be used to organize inorganic nanocrystals, forming ordered arrays over the length scale defined by liquid crystal formation. Using this information, Lee et al. (2000) were able to create self-assembled, highly oriented, self-supporting films from a phage and ZnS precursor solution. This system allowed them to vary both the length of bacteriophage and the type of inorganic material through genetic modification and selection.

[edit] Electrochemical assembly


Highly ordered arrays of quantum dots may also be self-assembled by electrochemical techniques. A template is created by causing an ionic reaction at an electrolyte-metal interface which results in the spontaneous assembly of nanostructures, including quantum dots, onto the metal which is then used as a mask for mesa-etching these nanostructures on a chosen substrate.

[edit] Bulk-manufacture
Conventional, small-scale quantum dot manufacturing relies on a process called high temperature dual injection which is impractical for most commercial applications that require large quantities of quantum dots. A reproducible method for creating larger quantities of consistent, high-quality quantum dots involves producing nanoparticles from chemical precursors in the presence of a molecular cluster compound under conditions whereby the integrity of the molecular cluster is maintained and acts as a prefabricated seed template. Individual molecules of a cluster compound act as a seed or nucleation point upon which nanoparticle growth can be initiated. In this way, a high temperature nucleation step is not necessary to initiate nanoparticle growth because suitable nucleation sites are already provided in the system by the molecular clusters. A significant advantage of this method is that it is highly scalable. Recently a consortium of U.S. and Dutch companies reported a "milestone" in high volume quantum dot manufacturing by applying the traditional high temperature dual injection method to a flow system.[15] However as of 2011, applications using bulkmanufactured quantum dots are scarcely available.[16]

[edit] Cadmium-free quantum dots

Cadmium-free quantum dots are also called CFQD. In many regions of the world there is now a restriction or ban on the use of heavy metals in many household goods which means that most cadmium based quantum dots are unusable for consumer-goods applications. For commercial viability, a range of restricted, heavy metal-free quantum dots has been developed showing bright emissions in the visible and near infra-red region of the spectrum and have similar optical properties to those of CdSe quantum dots. Cadmium and other restricted heavy metals used in conventional quantum dots is of a major concern in commercial applications. For Quantum Dots to be commercially viable in many applications they must not contain cadmium or other restricted metal elements.
[17]

A new type of CFQD can be made from rare earth (RE) doped oxide colloidal phosphor nanoparticles.[18] Unlike semiconductor nanoparticles, excitation was due to UV absorption of host material, which is same for different RE doped materials using same host. Multiplexing applications can be thus realized. The emission depends on the type of RE, which enables very large stokes shift and is narrower than CdSe QDs. The synthesis is aqueous based, which eliminated issues of water solubility for biological applications. The oxide surface might be easier for chemical functionalizion more and chemically stable in various environments. Some reports exist concerning the use of such phosphor nanoparticles on biological targeting and imaging.[19]

[edit] Optical properties

Fluorescence spectra of CdTe quantum dots of various sizes. Different sized quantum dots emit different color light due to quantum confinement. An immediate optical feature of colloidal quantum dots is their coloration. While the material which makes up a quantum dot defines its intrinsic energy signature, the nanocrystal's quantum confined size is more significant at energies near the band gap. Thus quantum dots of the same material, but with different sizes, can emit light of different colors. The physical reason is the quantum confinement effect.

The larger the dot, the redder (lower energy) its fluorescence spectrum. Conversely, smaller dots emit bluer (higher energy) light. The coloration is directly related to the energy levels of the quantum dot. Quantitatively speaking, the bandgap energy that determines the energy (and hence color) of the fluorescent light is inversely proportional to the size of the quantum dot. Larger quantum dots have more energy levels which are also more closely spaced. This allows the quantum dot to absorb photons containing less energy, i.e., those closer to the red end of the spectrum. Recent articles in nanotechnology and in other journals have begun to suggest that the shape of the quantum dot may be a factor in the coloration as well, but as yet not enough information is available. Furthermore, it was shown [20] that the lifetime of fluorescence is determined by the size of the quantum dot. Larger dots have more closely spaced energy levels in which the electron-hole pair can be trapped. Therefore, electron-hole pairs in larger dots live longer causing larger dots to show a longer lifetime. As with any crystalline semiconductor, a quantum dot's electronic wave functions extend over the crystal lattice. Similar to a molecule, a quantum dot has both a quantized energy spectrum and a quantized density of electronic states near the edge of the band gap. Qdots can be synthesized with larger (thicker) shells (CdSe qdots with CdS shells). The shell thickness has shown direct correlation to the lifetime and emission intensity.

[edit] Applications
Quantum dots are particularly significant for optical applications due to their high extinction co-efficient.[21] In electronic applications they have been proven to operate like a single electron transistor and show the Coulomb blockade effect. Quantum dots have also been suggested as implementations of qubits for quantum information processing. The ability to tune the size of quantum dots is advantageous for many applications. For instance, larger quantum dots have a greater spectrum-shift towards red compared to smaller dots, and exhibit less pronounced quantum properties. Conversely, the smaller particles allow one to take advantage of more subtle quantum effects.

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a wireless device that efficiently produces visible light, through energy transfer from thin layers of quantum wells to crystals above the layers. Being zero dimensional, quantum dots have a sharper density of states than higherdimensional structures. As a result, they have superior transport and optical properties, and are being researched for use in diode lasers, amplifiers, and biological sensors. Quantum dots may be excited within a locally enhanced electromagnetic field produced by gold nanoparticles, which can then be observed from the surface Plasmon resonance in the photoluminescent excitation spectrum of (CdSe)ZnS nanocrystals. High-quality quantum dots are well suited for optical encoding and multiplexing applications due to their broad excitation profiles and narrow/symmetric emission spectra. The new generations of quantum dots have far-reaching potential for the study of intracellular processes at the single-molecule level, high-resolution cellular imaging, long-term in vivo observation of cell trafficking, tumor targeting, and diagnostics.

[edit] Computing
Quantum dot technology is one of the most promising candidates for use in solid-state quantum computation. By applying small voltages to the leads, the flow of electrons through the quantum dot can be controlled and thereby precise measurements of the spin and other properties therein can be made. With several entangled quantum dots, or qubits, plus a way of performing operations, quantum calculations and the computers that would perform them might be possible.

[edit] Biology

In modern biological analysis, various kinds of organic dyes are used. However, with each passing year, more flexibility is being required of these dyes, and the traditional dyes are often unable to meet the expectations.[22] To this end, quantum dots have quickly filled in the role, being found to be superior to traditional organic dyes on several counts, one of the most immediately obvious being brightness (owing to the high extinction coefficient combined with a comparable quantum yield to fluorescent dyes [23]) as well as their stability (allowing much less photobleaching). It has been estimated that quantum dots are 20 times brighter and 100 times more stable than traditional fluorescent reporters.[22] For single-particle tracking, the irregular blinking of quantum dots is a minor drawback. The usage of quantum dots for highly sensitive cellular imaging has seen major advances over the past decade. The improved photostability of quantum dots, for example, allows the acquisition of many consecutive focal-plane images that can be reconstructed into a high-resolution three-dimensional image.[24] Another application that takes advantage of the extraordinary photostability of quantum dot probes is the real-time tracking of molecules and cells over extended periods of time.[25] Antibodies, streptavidin,[26] peptides,[27] nucleic acid aptamers,[28] or small-molecule ligands can be used to target quantum dots to specific proteins on cells. Researchers were able to observe quantum dots in lymph nodes of mice for more than 4 months.[29] Semiconductor quantum dots have also been employed for in vitro imaging of pre-labeled cells. The ability to image single-cell migration in real time is expected to be important to several research areas such as embryogenesis, cancer metastasis, stem-cell therapeutics, and lymphocyte immunology. Scientists have proven that quantum dots are dramatically better than existing methods for delivering a gene-silencing tool, known as siRNA, into cells.[30] First attempts have been made to use quantum dots for tumor targeting under in vivo conditions. There exist two basic targeting schemes: active targeting and passive targeting. In the case of active targeting, quantum dots are functionalized with tumorspecific binding sites to selectively bind to tumor cells. Passive targeting utilizes the enhanced permeation and retention of tumor cells for the delivery of quantum dot probes. Fast-growing tumor cells typically have more permeable membranes than healthy cells, allowing the leakage of small nanoparticles into the cell body. Moreover, tumor cells lack an effective lymphatic drainage system, which leads to subsequent nanoparticleaccumulation. One of the remaining issues with quantum dot probes is their potential in vivo toxicity. For example, CdSe nanocrystals are highly toxic to cultured cells under UV illumination. The energy of UV irradiation is close to that of the covalent chemical bond energy of CdSe nanocrystals. As a result, semiconductor particles can be dissolved, in a process known as photolysis, to release toxic cadmium ions into the culture medium. In the absence of UV irradiation, however, quantum dots with a stable polymer coating have been found to be essentially nontoxic.[29][31] Then again, only little is known about the

excretion process of quantum dots from living organisms.[32] These and other questions must be carefully examined before quantum dot applications in tumor or vascular imaging can be approved for human clinical use. Another potential cutting-edge application of quantum dots is being researched, with quantum dots acting as the inorganic fluorophore for intra-operative detection of tumors using fluorescence spectroscopy.

[edit] Photovoltaic devices


Main article: Nanocrystal solar cell Quantum dots may be able to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of today's typical silicon photovoltaic cells. According to an experimental proof from 2006 (controversial results[33]), quantum dots of lead selenide can produce as many as seven excitons from one high energy photon of sunlight (7.8 times the bandgap energy).[34] This compares favorably to today's photovoltaic cells which can only manage one exciton per high-energy photon, with high kinetic energy carriers losing their energy as heat. This would not result in a 7-fold increase in final output however, but could boost the maximum theoretical efficiency from 31% to 42%. Quantum dot photovoltaics would theoretically be cheaper to manufacture, as they can be made "using simple chemical reactions."[34] The generation of more than one exciton by a single photon is called multiple exciton generation (MEG) or carrier multiplication.

[edit] Light emitting devices


There are several inquiries into using quantum dots as light-emitting diodes to make displays and other light sources, such as "QD-LED" displays, and "QD-WLED" (White LED). In June, 2006, QD Vision announced technical success in making a proof-ofconcept quantum dot display and show a bright emission in the visible and near infra-red region of the spectrum. Quantum dots are valued for displays, because they emit light in very specific gaussian distributions. This can result in a display that more accurately renders the colors that the human eye can perceive. Quantum dots also require very little power since they are not color filtered. Additionally, since the discovery of "white-light emitting" QD, general solid-state lighting applications appear closer than ever.[35] A color liquid crystal display (LCD), for example, is usually powered by a single fluorescent lamp (or occasionally, conventional white LEDs) that is color filtered to produce red, green, and blue pixels. Displays that intrinsically produce monochromatic light can be more efficient, since more of the light produced reaches the eye.

[edit] Photodetector devices


Quantum dot photodetectors (QDPs) can be fabricated either via solution-processing,[36] or from conventional single-crystalline semiconductors.[37] Conventional singlecrystalline semiconductor QDPs are precluded from integration with flexible organic electronics due to the incompatibility of their growth conditions with the process

windows required by organic semiconductors. On the other hand, solution-processed QDPs can be readily integrated with an almost infinite variety of substrates, and also postprocessed atop other integrated circuits. Such colloidal QDPs have potential applications in surveillance, machine vision, industrial inspection, spectroscopy, and fluorescent biomedical imaging.

[edit] See also


Fluorescence Nanocrystal solar cell Programmable matter Quantum dot display Quantum dot laser Quantum point contact Quantum well Quantum wire Trojan wave packet

[edit] References
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[edit] General references

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (February 2008)

Reed MA; Hornbeck, ES; Deshpande, MR; Wheeler, RG; Reed, MA; Bowen, RC; Frensley, WR; Randall, JN et al. (1993). "Quantum Dots" (PDF). Scientific American 268 (1): 118. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0193-118. PMID 9983408. Murray CB, Norris DJ, Bawendi MG (1993). "Synthesis and characterization of nearly monodisperse CdE (E = S, Se, Te) semiconductor nanocrystallites". J Am Chem Soc 115 (19): 870615. doi:10.1021/ja00072a025. Peng ZA, Peng X (2001). "Formation of high-quality CdTe, CdSe, and CdS nanocrystals using CdO as precursor". J Am Chem Soc 123 (1): 1834. doi:10.1021/ja003633m. PMID 11273619. Wang C, Shim M, Guyot-Sionnest P (2001). "Electrochromic nanocrystal quantum dots". Science 291 (5512): 23902. Bibcode 2001Sci...291.2390W. doi:10.1126/science.291.5512.2390. PMID 11264530. Michalet X, Pinaud FF, Bentolila LA, et al. (2005). "Quantum dots for live cells, in vivo imaging, and diagnostics". Science 307 (5709): 53844. Bibcode 2005Sci...307..538M. doi:10.1126/science.1104274. PMC 1201471. PMID 15681376. Shim M, Guyot-Sionnest P (2000). "n-type colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals". Nature 407 (6807): 9813. doi:10.1038/35039577. PMID 11069172. Buhro WE, Colvin VL (2003). "Semiconductor nanocrystals: Shape matters". Nature materials 2 (3): 1389. Bibcode 2003NatMa...2..138B. doi:10.1038/nmat844. PMID 12612665. Bandyopadhyay S, Miller AE (2001). "Electrochemically self-assembled ordered nanostructure arrays: Quantum dots, dashes, and wires". In Nalwa HS. Handbook of Advanced Electronic and Photonic Materials and Devices. 6. San Diego, Calif.: Academic. ISBN 0125137451. Schaller RD, Klimov VI (2004). "High Efficiency Carrier Multiplication in PbSe Nanocrystals: Implications for Solar Energy Conversion". Phys Rev Lett 92 (18): 186601. arXiv:cond-mat/0404368. Bibcode 2004PhRvL..92r6601S. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.92.186601. PMID 15169518. Bowers MJ, McBride JR, Rosenthal SJ (2005). "White-Light Emission from Magic-Sized Cadmium Selenide Nanocrystals". J Am Chem Soc 127 (44): 15378 9. doi:10.1021/ja055470d. PMID 16262395. Thomas Engel. Quantum Chemistry and Spectroscopy. ISBN 0-8053-3843-8. Pearson Education, 2006. Pages 7576. C. Delerue, M. Lannoo. Nanostructures: Theory and Modelling. ISBN 3540206949. Springer, 2004.

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Nanopatterning of Quantum Dots Sizing Curve for CdSe Nanocrystals

Sizing Curve for CdS Nanocrystals Quantum Dots: Technical Status and Market Prospects Quantum dots that produce white light could be the light bulbs successor Quantum dots device counts single electrons - New Scientist Quantum dot on arxiv.org Quantum Dots Research and Technical Data National Nanotechnologies Laboratories of CNR-INFM [show]

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Quantum dots background briefing


Quantum dots are tiny particles, or nanoparticles, of a semiconductor material, traditionally chalcogenides (selenides or sulfides) of metals like cadmium or zinc (CdSe or ZnS, for example), which range from 2 to 10 nanometers in diameter (about the width of 50 atoms). Because of their small size, quantum dots display unique optical and electrical properties that are different in character to those of the corresponding bulk material. The most immediately apparent of these is the emission of photons under excitation, which are visible to the human eye as light. Moreover, the wavelength of these photon emissions depends not on the material from which the quantum dot is made, but its size. The ability to precisely control the size of a quantum dot enables the manufacturer to determine the wavelength of the emission, which in turn determines the colour of light the human eye perceives. Quantum dots can therefore be tuned during production to emit any colour of light desired. The ability to control, or tune the emission from the quantum dot by changing its core size is called the size quantisation effect. The smaller the dot, the closer it is to the blue end of the spectrum, and the larger the dot, the closer to the red end. Dots can even be tuned beyond visible light, into the infra-red or into the ultra-violet. At the end of the production process, quantum dots appear physically either as a powder or in a solution. Because of their tiny size, the ability to produce even a relatively small volume of quantum dots (e.g. one kilo) will yield enough actual quantum dots for industrial scale applications. Nanoco Technologies has patented a molecular seeding process which enables such large scale production to occur. Now, the ability to mass-produce consistently high quality quantum dots enables product designers to envisage their use in consumer products and a wide range of other applications for the first time, and then bring these superior, next-generation products to market. Together with our partners, this is what Nanoco Technologies does. Our research and development department is also constantly engaged in the creation of new quantum dots with additional properties sought by the market, such as our RoHScompliant heavy metal-free quantum dots.

SMALLER. . . smaller . . . smaller. In the semiconductor industry, this mantra translates to faster . . . faster . . . faster. The question is, how small can you go? At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the answer may be: as small as quantum dots. Physicist Howard Lee and his team of Laboratory and University of California at Davis researchers have been exploring these entities, which are about a single nanometer (a billionth of a meter) in size and made out of material such as silicon. Lee explains, "Imagine taking a wafer of silicon and cutting it in half again and again and again, until you have a piece containing about a hundred to a thousand atoms. That's the size we're looking at." The small size results in new quantum phenomena that yield some extraordinary bonuses. Material properties change dramatically because quantum effects arise from the confinement of electrons and "holes" in the material (a hole is the absence of an electron; the hole behaves as though it were a positively charged particle). Size changes other material properties such as the electrical and nonlinear optical properties of a material, making them very different from those of the material's bulk form. If a dot is excited, the smaller the dot, the higher

the energy and intensity of its emitted light. Hence, these very small, semiconducting quantum dots are gateways to an enormous array of possible applications and new technologies. "For years," says Lee, "scientists have been trying to make silicon emit light efficiently and in the visible range. This has been one of the holy grails of science." In 1990, researchers from Europe made porous silicon emit red light and attributed its color to quantum confinement arising from the small size. Since then, many other research institutions and commercial companies have taken an interest in quantum dots and have made silicon dots that emit at frequencies higher in the spectrum, in the much-sought-after green and blue ranges. In general, these higher energy emissions tend to be difficult to reproduce and not well understood. "Here at the Laboratory," says Lee, "we have made silicon and germanium quantum dots that emit light throughout the visible spectrum-from the infrared to the ultraviolet. What makes our dots unique is that their luminescence can be tuned to any wavelength over a broad spectral range and be stable under ambient conditions. No one else has done this. We also believe we understand the underlying physics." Smaller Is Beautiful The color of the emitted light depends on the size of the dots: the larger the dot, the redder the light. As the dots shrink in size, the emitted light becomes shorter in wavelength, moving toward the blue. A rainbow of colors can be emitted from a single material simply by changing the dot size. One possible use for this rainbow of colors is in biosensors used to detect agents of biological warfare. "Present-day fluorescence-based biosensors depend on organic dyes to tag the agents. The dyes luminesce to tell you whether any harmful bioagent is present," says Lee. "The problem is, dyes luminesce with a broad spectral width, which limits their effectiveness to a small number of colors. Furthermore, they degrade. Using quantum dots instead of dyes, the whole spectrum is available and there is little degradation over time." "With all these different colors, it's now possible to make light-emitting diodes (LEDs) from quantum dots," says Lee. "We've come up with a process so easy you can almost do it in your garage. We can put these dots in

a polymer and make thin films that are 1,000- to 2,000angstroms thick. This means we can create precisely tuned blue or green LEDs." Another future use for quantum-dot LEDs is to emit white light for uses in laptop computers or as internal lighting for buildings or cars. Lee and his team have discovered they can-by controlling the amount of blue in the emission-control the "flavor" or "tone" of the white light as well. Quantum dots are also possible materials for making ultrafast, all-optical switches and logic gates. "We can make all-optical switches and logic gates that work faster than 15 terabits a second," says Lee. For comparison, the Ethernet generally can handle only 10 megabits per second. Quantum dots provide a remarkable millionfold improvement in speed. Other possible applications are all-optical demultiplexers (for separating various multiplexed signals in an optical fiber), all-optical computing, and encryption. The frantic pace of innovation in semiconductors requires that integrated circuits be made with ever smaller features to carry more data and do it faster (see S&TR, March 1998, Keeping the "More" in Moore's Law, and November 1999, Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography: Imaging the Future). Most semiconductor fabrication processes start with a silicon wafer and etch away unneeded wafer material. Quantum dots, Lee explains, allow a bottom-up approach: "If you only need 100 atoms, then that's what you make. And a single quantum dot can function as a microelectronic unit such as a transistor to form the basis of nanoelectronics." At sizes of 1 to 6 nanometers, billions of dots will fit on the head of a pin. They will have incredibly fast operating speeds-1 picosecond or less-and extremely low power requirements.

Connecting the Dots In a current Laboratory Directed Research and Development project, Lee is developing quantum wires to connect the dots together in a variety of configurations. As Lee notes, "If you use regular or even microscopic connections to link these dots, the size of the connections could destroy any useful quantum effects and defeat the purpose." The quantum wires are molecular tethers made of organic compounds chemically bonded to the surface of the dot. They can be of various lengths-the longest created to date is about 12 angstroms long-and serve multiple functions. They can be electrically or optically active molecular structures. The wires on the dots add up to a nanometer-scale version of the popular kids' toy, the stringy Koosh BallTM. Using these wires and dots, Lee and his team are developing new nanostructures with quantum dots as the building blocks. The team is linking the dots in various one-, two- or three-dimensional configurations-as a molecule, a lattice, or attached to a polymer backbone.

The molecular tethers act like electrical wires to the dots or as a way to control the interaction of connected dots.

Into the Wild, Blue Yonder Quantum-dot LEDs, particularly those that provide the hard-to-reach blue end of the spectrum, appear to be key to opening any number of exciting technological advances in the fields of full-color, flat-panel displays; ultrahigh-density optical memories and data storage; backlighting; and chemical and biological sensing. "We have also explored the use of quantum dots for blue lasers," notes Lee. "In 1999, we demonstrated that lasing may be possible with these quantum dots, opening the door to a new class of blue lasers that have intriguing applications for both the private sector and the missions of the Department of Energy." Ann Parker Key Words: all-optical switch, demultiplexer, light-emitting diode (LED), logic gate, quantum dot, quantum effects, semiconductor. For more information contact Howard Lee (925) 423-5877 (lee19@llnl.gov).

Back to July/August 2000 // Science & Technology Review 2000 // Science & Technology Review // LLNL Homepage

quantum dot
A quantum dot is a particle of matter so small that the addition or removal of an electron changes its properties in some useful way. All atom s are, of course, quantum dots, but multi-molecular combinations can have this characteristic. In biochemistry, quantum dots are called redox groups. In nanotechnology , they are called quantum bits or qubit s. Quantum dots typically have dimensions measured in nanometers, where one nanometer is 10 -9 meter or a millionth of a millimeter. The fields of biology, chemistry, computer science, and electronics are all of interest to researchers in nanotechnology. An example of the overlapping of these disciplines is a hypothetical biochip , which might contain a sophisticated computer and be grown in a manner similar to the way a tree evolves from a seed. In this scenario, the terms redox group and qubit are equally applicable; it is hard to classify such a chip as either animate or inanimate. The quantum dots in a biochip would each account for at least one data bit, and possibly several. In the extreme, the position of a single electron in a quantum dot might attain several states, so that a quantum dot could represent a byte of data. Alternatively, a quantum dot might be used in more than one computational instruction at a time. Other applications of quantum dots include nanomachines , neural networks, and high-density memory or storage media. Home > quantum dot

quantum dot

A nano-scale crystalline structure made from cadmium selenide that absorbs white light and then reemits it a couple of nanoseconds later in a specific color. The quantum dot has been around since the 1980s when scientists were looking into the technology as a way to build nano-scale computing applications where light is used to process information. More recently, however, the technology is being used in medicine. The crystals are one tenmillionth of an inch in size and can be dissolved in water. When illuminated, they act as

molecule-sized LEDs and can be used as probes to track antibodies, viruses, proteins, or DNA within the human body. Previous Term Next Term How is a server different from a desktop? What are storage area networks? Can I use a high-end desktop in place of a server?

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