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Coupling effects in QD dimers at sub-nanometer interparticle distance

Nano Research volume 13, pages 1071–1080 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Currently, intensive research efforts focus on the fabrication of meso-structures of assembled colloidal quantum dots (QDs) with original optical and electronic properties. Such collective features originate from the QDs coupling, depending on the number of connected units and their distance. However, the development of general methodologies to assemble colloidal QD with precise stoichiometry and particle-particle spacing remains a key challenge. Here, we demonstrate that dimers of CdSe QDs, stable in solution, can be obtained by engineering QD surface chemistry, reducing the surface steric hindrance and favoring the link between two QDs. The connection is made by using alkyl dithiols as bifunctional linkers and different chain lengths are used to tune the interparticle distance from few nm down to 0.5 nm. The spectroscopic investigation highlights that coupling phenomena between the QDs in dimers are strongly dependent on the interparticle distance and QD size, ultimately affecting the exciton dissociation efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

This work is financially supported by the H2020 FET project COPAC (Contract agreement n.766563).

The MIUR PRIN 2015 n. 2015XBZ5YA is also acknowledged.

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Author notes

  1. Carlo Nazareno Dibenedetto and Elisabetta Fanizza contributed equally to the work.

Affiliations

  1. CNR-Istituto per i Processi Chimico-Fisici SS Bari, Via Orabona 4, 70125, Bari, Italy

    Carlo Nazareno Dibenedetto, Elisabetta Fanizza, Annamaria Panniello, Nicoletta Depalo, Roberto Comparelli, Angela Agostiano, Maria Lucia Curri & Marinella Striccoli

  2. Dipartimento di Chimica, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, Via Orabona 4, 70125, Bari, Italy

    Carlo Nazareno Dibenedetto, Elisabetta Fanizza, Angela Agostiano & Maria Lucia Curri

  3. Electron Microscopy Facility, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, via Morego 30, 16163, Genova, Italy

    Rosaria Brescia

  4. Department of Applied Physics and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 9190401, Israel

    Yuval Kolodny, Sergei Remennik, Shira Yochelis & Yossi Paltiel

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  1. Carlo Nazareno Dibenedetto
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  2. Elisabetta Fanizza
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Correspondence to Marinella Striccoli.

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Dibenedetto, C.N., Fanizza, E., Brescia, R. et al. Coupling effects in QD dimers at sub-nanometer interparticle distance. Nano Res. 13, 1071–1080 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2747-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-020-2747-3

Keywords

  • quantum dots
  • dimers
  • surface chemistry
  • dithiols
  • coupling