Silicon Nanocrystals and Silicon‐Polymer Hybrids: Synthesis, Surface Engineering, and Applications

Abstract

Silicon nanocrystals (Si-NCs) are emerging as an attractive class of quantum dots owing to the natural abundance of silicon in the Earth's crust, their low toxicity compared to many Group II-VI and III-V based quantum dots, compatibility with the existing semiconductor industry infrastructure, and their unique optoelectronic properties. Despite these favorable qualities, Si-NCs have not received the same attention as Group II-VI and III-V quantum dots, because of their lower emission quantum yields, difficulties associated with synthesizing monodisperse particles, and oxidative instability. Recent advancements indicate the surface chemistry of Si-NCs plays a key role in determining many of their properties. This Review summarizes new reports related to engineering Si-NC surfaces, synthesis of Si-NC/polymer hybrids, and their applications in sensing, diodes, catalysis, and batteries.

Profiling Photoinduced Carrier Generation in Semiconductor Microwire Arrays via Photoelectrochemical Metal Deposition

“…[1][2][3][4] The ability to tailor such properties has made mesostructures attractive architectures for applications in areas including photonics 5-7 , photovoltaics [8][9][10][11] , electronics 12,13 , catalysis [14][15][16] , and sensing 17,18 . Mesostructured semiconducting wire arrays composed of elemental, binary compounds (e.g.…”

Origin of the Photoluminescence Quantum Yields Enhanced by Alkane-Termination of Freestanding Silicon Nanocrystals: Temperature-Dependence of Optical Properties

“…Intensive studies are ongoing into freestanding silicon nanocrystals (ncSi), which is a promising material for applications including light emitting diodes (LEDs)123, optically-pumped lasers4, optical switching devices5, sensors67, hydrogen storage8, field-effect transistors9, solar photovoltaics1011, medical and biological applications12131415, photodiodes16, and lithium-ion batteries17. The appeal of ncSi in these applications is largely a result of its exceptional properties of nontoxicity18, continuous tunability of photoluminescence (PL) over a broad spectral range from UV to near-IR19, third-order nonlinear optical behavior2021, robustness of the covalent Si-Si bond versus ionic bonds, high compatibility with microelectronics, and being an abundant element.…”

Fluorescent silicon clusters and nanoparticles

“…At the present time, there seems to be a consensus that the vast majority of reported fluorescent bands in the blue spectral range are due to localised transitions, rather than being caused by quantum confinement (Dasog et al, 2013(Dasog et al, , 2016). The precise nature of this fluorescence is nevertheless debated, though it is nevertheless reasonable to attribute it to a range of different transitions which have similar transition energies.…”