Colloidal nanocrystals of ternary I–III–VI 2 semiconductors are emerging as promising alternatives to Cd- and Pb-chalcogenide nanocrystals because of their inherently lower toxicity, while still offering widely tunable photoluminescence. These properties make them promising materials for a variety of applications. However, the realization of their full potential has been hindered by both their underdeveloped synthesis and the poor understanding of their optoelectronic properties, whose origins are still under intense debate. In this Perspective, we provide novel insights on the latter aspect by critically discussing the accumulated body of knowledge on I–III–VI 2 nanocrystals. From our analysis, we conclude that the luminescence in these nanomaterials most likely originates from the radiative recombination of a delocalized conduction band electron with a hole localized at the group-I cation, which results in broad bandwidths, large Stokes shifts, and long exciton lifetimes. Finally, we highlight the remaining open questions and propose experiments to address them.

Copper indium sulfide (CIS) quantum dots (QDs) are attractive as labels for biomedical imaging, since they have large absorption coefficients across a broad spectral range, size- and composition-tunable photoluminescence from the visible to the near-infrared, and low toxicity. However, the application of NIR-emitting CIS QDs is still hindered by large size and shape dispersions and low photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs). In this work, we develop an efficient pathway to synthesize highly luminescent NIR-emitting wurtzite CIS/ZnS QDs, starting from template Cu2-xS nanocrystals (NCs), which are converted by topotactic partial Cu+ for In3+ exchange into CIS NCs. These NCs are subsequently used as cores for the overgrowth of ZnS shells (≤1 nm thick). The CIS/ZnS core/shell QDs exhibit PL tunability from the first to the second NIR window (750–1100 nm), with PLQYs ranging from 75% (at 820 nm) to 25% (at 1050 nm), and can be readily transferred to water upon exchange of the native ligands for mercaptoundecanoic acid. The resulting water-dispersible CIS/ZnS QDs possess good colloidal stability over at least 6 months and PLQYs ranging from 39% (at 820 nm) to 6% (at 1050 nm). These PLQYs are superior to those of commonly available water-soluble NIR-fluorophores (dyes and QDs), making the hydrophilic CIS/ZnS QDs developed in this work promising candidates for further application as NIR emitters in bioimaging. The hydrophobic CIS/ZnS QDs obtained immediately after the ZnS shelling are also attractive as fluorophores in luminescent solar concentrators.

The knowledge of the quantum dot (QD) concentration in a colloidal suspension and the quantitative understanding of the size-dependence of the band gap of QDs are of crucial importance from both applied and fundamental viewpoints. In this work, we investigate the size-dependence of the optical properties of nearly spherical wurtzite (wz) CuInS2 (CIS) QDs in the 2.7 to 6.1 nm diameter range (polydispersity ≤10%). The QDs are synthesized by partial Cu+ for In3+ cation exchange in template Cu2–xS nanocrystals, which yields CIS QDs with very small composition variations (In/Cu = 0.91 ± 0.11), regardless of their sizes. These well-defined QDs are used to investigate the size-dependence of the band gap of wz CIS QDs. A sizing curve is also constructed for chalcopyrite CIS QDs by collecting and reanalyzing literature data. We observe that both sizing curves follow primarily a 1/d dependence. Moreover, the molar absorption coefficients and the absorption cross-section per CIS formula unit, both at 3.1 eV and at the band gap, are analyzed. The results demonstrate that the molar absorption coefficients of CIS QDs follow a power law at the first exciton transition energy (εE1 = 5208d2.45) and scale with the QD volume at 3.1 eV. This latter observation implies that the absorption cross-section per unit cell at 3.1 eV is size-independent and therefore can be estimated from bulk optical constants. These results also demonstrate that the molar absorption coefficients at 3.1 eV are more reliable for analytical purposes, since they are less sensitive to size and shape dispersion.

Synthesis protocols for anisotropic CuInX2 (X = S, Se, Te)-based heteronanocrystals (HNCs) are scarce due to the difficulty in balancing the reactivities of multiple precursors and the high solid-state diffusion rates of the cations involved in the CuInX2 lattice. In this work, we report a multistep seeded growth synthesis protocol that yields colloidal wurtzite CuInS2/ZnS dot core/rod shell HNCs with photoluminescence in the NIR (∼800 nm). The wurtzite CuInS2 NCs used as seeds are obtained by topotactic partial Cu+ for In3+ cation exchange in template Cu2–xS NCs. The seed NCs are injected in a hot solution of zinc oleate and hexadecylamine in octadecene, 20 s after the injection of sulfur in octadecene. This results in heteroepitaxial growth of wurtzite ZnS primarily on the Sulfur-terminated polar facet of the CuInS2 seed NCs, the other facets being overcoated only by a thin (∼1 monolayer) shell. The fast (∼21 nm/min) asymmetric axial growth of the nanorod proceeds by addition of [ZnS] monomer units, so that the polarity of the terminal (002) facet is preserved throughout the growth. The delayed injection of the CuInS2 seed NCs is crucial to allow the concentration of [ZnS] monomers to build up, thereby maximizing the anisotropic heteroepitaxial growth rates while minimizing the rates of competing processes (etching, cation exchange, alloying). Nevertheless, a mild etching still occurred, likely prior to the onset of heteroepitaxial overgrowth, shrinking the core size from 5.5 to ∼4 nm. The insights provided by this work open up new possibilities in designing multifunctional Cu-chalcogenide based colloidal heteronanocrystals.

Lead halide perovskites open great prospects for optoelectronics and a wealth of potential applications in quantum optical and spin-based technologies. Precise knowledge of the fundamental optical and spin properties of charge-carrier complexes at the origin of their luminescence is crucial in view of the development of these applications. On nearly bulk Cesium-Lead-Bromide single perovskite nanocrystals, which are the test bench materials for next-generation devices as well as theoretical modeling, we perform low temperature magneto-optical spectroscopy to reveal their entire band-edge exciton fine structure and charge-complex binding energies. We demonstrate that the ground exciton state is dark and lays several millielectronvolts below the lowest bright exciton sublevels, which settles the debate on the bright-dark exciton level ordering in these materials. More importantly, combining these results with spectroscopic measurements on various perovskite nanocrystal compounds, we show evidence for universal scaling laws relating the exciton fine structure splitting, the trion and biexciton binding energies to the band-edge exciton energy in lead-halide perovskite nanostructures, regardless of their chemical composition. These scaling laws solely based on quantum confinement effects and dimensionless energies offer a general predictive picture for the interaction energies within charge-carrier complexes photo-generated in these emerging semiconductor nanostructures.

Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) using colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and dyes is of importance in a wide range of biological and biophysical studies. Here, we report a study on FRET between CuInS2/ZnS QDs and dark quencher dye molecules (IRDye QC-1). Oleate-capped QDs with photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) of 55 ± 4% are transferred into water by using two types of multifunctional polymer ligands combining imidazole groups and specific moieties with amine or methoxy groups as the terminal sites. The resulting water-dispersible QDs show PLQYs as high as 44 ± 4% and exhibit long-term colloidal stability (at least 10 months at 4 °C in the dark) with a hydrodynamic diameter of less than 20 nm. A side-by-side comparison experiment was performed using the amine or methoxy-functionalized QDs for coupling to dark quencher dye molecules. The amine-functionalized QDs bind to the dye molecules via covalent bonds, while methoxy-functionalized ones bind only weakly and nonspecifically. The progressive quenching of the QD emission and shortening of its photoluminescence decay time upon increasing the number of conjugated dye molecules demonstrate that the QD acts as the energy donor and the dark quencher dye as the energy acceptor in a donor–acceptor FRET pair. The FRET dynamics of the QD–dye conjugates are simulated using two different models based on the possible origin of the multiexponential PL decay of the QDs (i.e., variations in nonradiative or radiative decay rates). The model based on the radiative decay rates provides a better fit of our experimental data and estimates a donor–acceptor distance (6.5 nm) that matches well the hydrodynamic radius of the amine-functionalized QDs.

Colloidal copper­(I) sulfide (Cu2–x S) nanocrystals (NCs) have attracted much attention for a wide range of applications because of their unique optoelectronic properties, driving scientists to explore the potential of using Cu2–x S NCs as seeds in the synthesis of heteronanocrystals to achieve new multifunctional materials. Herein, we developed a multistep synthesis strategy toward Cu2–x S/ZnS heteronanorods. The Janus-type Cu2–x S/ZnS heteronanorods are obtained by the injection of hexagonal high-chalcocite Cu2–x S seed NCs in a hot zinc oleate solution in the presence of suitable surfactants, 20 s after the injection of sulfur precursors. The Cu2–x S seed NCs undergo rapid aggregation and coalescence in the first few seconds after the injection, forming larger NCs that act as the effective seeds for heteronucleation and growth of ZnS. The ZnS heteronucleation occurs on a single (100) facet of the Cu2–x S seed NCs and is followed by fast anisotropic growth along a direction that is perpendicular to the c-axis, thus leading to Cu2–x S/ZnS Janus-type heteronanorods with a sharp heterointerface. Interestingly, the high-chalcocite crystal structure of the injected Cu2–x S seed NCs is preserved in the Cu2–x S segments of the heteronanorods because of the high-thermodynamic stability of this Cu2–x S phase. The Cu2–x S/ZnS heteronanorods are subsequently converted into single-component Cu2–x S and CuInS2 nanorods by postsynthetic topotactic cation exchange. This work expands the possibilities for the rational synthesis of colloidal multicomponent heteronanorods by allowing the design principles of postsynthetic heteroepitaxial seeded growth and nanoscale cation exchange to be combined, yielding access to a plethora of multicomponent heteronanorods with diameters in the quantum confinement regime.

This paper aims to systematically optimize the preparation process of CuInS2 (CIS) QDs by intensively manipulating kinetic variables including reaction temperature, reaction time, In/Cu ratio and surface ligand.