Researchers Use Light to Tune Quantum Dot Properties

A new way of tuning quantum dots could make it quicker and easier to customize these miniature semiconductors for applications from solar cells to medical research.

Quantum dots are nanoparticle-sized semiconductors with optical and electric properties that can be tuned by changing their size, composition, or surface chemistry. Discovered in the early 1980s — and the subject of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — quantum dots are already used in applications such as solar cells and quantum dot organic light-emitting diode (QD-OLED) displays. Their properties are generally tuned in batch reactions, however, which aren’t always efficient or homogenous. Many require high temperatures and, thus, use a lot of energy.

Now, researchers led by Milad Abolhasani of the North Carolina State Univ. Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering have come up with a way to tune lead halide perovskite quantum dots with light. Using a microfluidic device, they found they could speed up the reaction by 3–10 times compared to a similar reaction in a batch reactor. “We wanted to use our chemical engineering expertise to come up with an engineering solution that would allow us to study a sustainable way of tuning perovskite quantum dot properties much faster, using a much smaller chemical consumption,”...