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Dopant-controlled photoluminescence of Ag-doped Zn–In–S nanocrystals

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Abstract

In this work, we reported the growth of cadmium-free Ag-doped Zn–In–S nanocrystals (NCs) with effective photoluminescence (PL) via a hot-injection strategy. The effects of the nucleation temperatures, reaction times, and Ag-doping concentrations on the PL properties of Ag-doped Zn–In–S NCs were investigated systematically. The as-synthesized NCs exhibit color-tunable PL emissions covering a broad visible range of 472–585 nm. After being passivated by a protective ZnS shell, the PL quantum yield (QY) of the resultant NCs was greatly improved up to 33%. With the increase of the Ag-doping level, the PL is significantly intensified due to the improved concentration of Ag ions which provides more holes to recombine with electrons from the bottom of the conduction band. This also makes the emission via the dopant energy level become a powerful, competitive advantage for the NCs with higher Ag-doping levels, resulting in a longer lifetime and higher PL QY. These results suggest that tailoring the Ag-doping level can be a powerful strategy to control the optical properties of Ag-doped Zn–In–S NCs.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant No. 61106066), Zhejiang Provincial Science Foundation (Grant No. LY14F040001), and Ningbo Municipal Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 2016A610104).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Ningbo University of Technology, Ningbo, 315016, China

    Xinjun Shi & Jinju Zheng

  2. Institute of Materials, Ningbo University of Technology, Ningbo, 315016, China

    Jinju Zheng, Minhui Shang, Tingting Xie, Jiangbo Xie, Sheng Cao & Weiyou Yang

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  1. Xinjun Shi
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  2. Jinju Zheng
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  3. Minhui Shang
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  4. Tingting Xie
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  5. Jiangbo Xie
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  7. Weiyou Yang
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Correspondence to Jinju Zheng or Minhui Shang.

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Shi, X., Zheng, J., Shang, M. et al. Dopant-controlled photoluminescence of Ag-doped Zn–In–S nanocrystals. Journal of Materials Research 32, 3585–3592 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2017.247

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