Doping for Speed: Colloidal Nanoparticles for Thin-Film Optoelectronics

Solution-processable semiconductor materials ranging from conjugated polymers and small organic molecules to colloidal inorganic nanoparticles are being studied for applications in both low-cost solar cells and photodetectors. High-quality thin films of many inorganic semiconductors can be prepared by techniques such as chemical vapor deposition, molecular beam epitaxy, and atomic layer deposition. In contrast, preparing device-quality films of inorganic materials from colloidal solutions can be more difficult due to the challenge of achieving well-defined doping, controlled trap densities, and reproducible surface chemistry. Nevertheless, solution deposition using colloidal precursors is an attractive goal because of the potential for low-cost, large-area processing. In recent years, a great deal of effort has focused on the colloidal synthesis of wide-band-gap metal oxides such as TiO(2), visible-absorbing II-VI compounds such as CdSe, and small-band-gap materials such as PbSe. Much of the work on visible- and IR-absorbing photodetectors has been done on materials containing metals such as Cd and Pb. A new paper in this issue demonstrates photoconductive detectors made from Cu-containing In(2)S(3) nanoplates. The incorporation of Cu into the In(2)S(3) nanoplates leads to a significant decrease in the lifetime of the photoexcited carriers, resulting in significantly faster response times for the photodetectors processed from colloidal solution.