(262d) Elucidating the Role of Surface Functionalization on the Photoluminescent Properties of Group IV Nanocrystals

Presently, the globe is grappling with staggering climate changes stemming from the energy consumption. A potential way to prevail these challenges is to develop current technologies that optimize energy utilization with highest efficiency. Among many important energy consumption domains, microelectronics industry is one of the critical fields which uses substantial amount of energy for operation and also offsetting the heat dissipation from the components (such as memory chips). The reason for the consumption majorly comes from the conventional chips which transmit data with electrons, resulting in the resistive heating in the electronic parts. To address this issue, use of light as data transfer agent in chip-to-chip communications can substantially reduce the energy requirement. However, currently majority of these electronic parts are made up of silicon which does not have a capability of being emit light efficiently owing to the indirect bandgap nature. Thus, it is essential to develop novel materials to possess the ability to emit light efficiently for integrating it to the chip through advanced lithographic techniques

Herein, I will be presenting the colloidal synthesis and surface functionalization of Group IV nanocrystals (NCs), specifically Si and Ge and their alloys with Sn, for the optoelectronic applications. Colloidal synthesis of those materials offers great advantages such as low temperature synthesis, scalability and tunable optical properties. It also allows to synthesize nanocrystals with varying sizes and shapes. Furthermore, recently there is a lack of understanding how different surface termination impacts the electronic bandgap and optical properties in these nanomaterials. I will demonstrate the surface functionalization of the nanocrystals and their alloys with different organic and inorganic ligands and how it impacts the photoluminescent properties.