Search

Quasicrystals are ordered structures that lack any translational symmetry, challenging the classic conception of ordered solids as periodic structures. So far, they have been reported in certain systems and can, for example, form from intermetallic compounds and organic dendrimers. Here it is shown that colloidal inorganic nanoparticles from several materials can self-assemble into binary aperiodic superlattices with quasicrystalline order.

All-inorganic nanocrystals are of great importance for a variety of electronic applications. Here, the authors use metal salts to remove organic ligands to obtain passivated nanocrystals with improved fluorescence yield for direct optical patterning.

Ti-, Zr- and Nb-based MXenes with Cl, Br or mixed terminations can be synthesized by a bottom-up, atom-economic route directly from metals and molecular organohalides. The reactivity of organohalide precursors can be controlled to enable direct synthesis of MXene nanostructures that exhibit enhanced surface reactivity compared with conventional micrometre-scale MXenes.

Guan et al. report a simple yet multifunctional molecule which enables direct, photoresist-free patterning of quantum dots under ambient conditions. This advance leads to over 20% efficiency for patterned QLEDs and full-color active-matrix displays, offering a practical route to next-generation display manufacturing.

A class of colloids is reported in which inorganic solute particles—such as metals and semiconductors—are dispersed in molten inorganic salts.

Colloidal nanocrystals are a promising material for easy-to-fabricate nanolasers, but suffer from high threshold powers. Here, the authors combine colloidal quantum wells with a photonic-crystal cavity into a stable, continuous-wave room-temperature nanolaser with a threshold below one microwatt

Controlling nanoscale colloidal crystallization is not straightforward. Such control is now achieved by leveraging a metastable liquid phase of charged nanocrystals.

Arrays of cadmium selenide nanocrystals capped with molecular metal chalcogenide complexes exhibit high values of electron mobility and photoconductivity.

Excited state dynamics of alloyed quantum dots differ from that of binary quantum dots. Here, the authors use femtosecond spectroscopy and theoretical calculations to show that alloying tunes relaxation dynamics separately from traditional optical properties of quantum dots.

Suspensions of octapod-shaped nanocrystals are seen to spontaneously interlock into chains, which in turn aggregate side-by-side to form three-dimensional crystals. The observed hierarchical self-assembly can be explained by the octapod's shape and the solvent-tunable van der Waals interactions.

The optical and electronic performance of inorganic nanocrystal assemblies stabilized by organic ligands has been extensively investigated, whereas less attention has been paid to their thermal transport properties. It is now shown that the thermal conductivity of these composite systems is determined by the vibrational states of both inorganic and ligand regions, as well as by their relative volumes.

We synthesized stretchable electroluminescent polymers capable of reaching a near-unity theoretical quantum yield through thermally activated delayed fluorescence. Their polymers show 125% stretchability with 10% external quantum efficiency and demonstrate a fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode.

Fast fluorescence resonance energy transfer between CdSe nanoplatelets on a picosecond timescale is measured. This process is faster than Auger recombination and leads to the observation of multiexcitonic energy transfer in these materials.

High charge mobility while retaining signatures of quantum-confined states is obtained in films of surface-passivated HgTe quantum dots.

An unusual new material, NiTTFtt, is reported that is structurally amorphous, precluding a classical band structure, but detailed characterization reveals high conductivity and a metallic character.

An integrated theoretical and experimental approach characterizes buried interfaces in nanocrystal-in-glass systems at the atomistic level, revealing how matrix density and specific defects may be designed to attain desirable electronic and transport properties.

Functionalizing two-dimensional transition-metal carbide (MXene) surfaces can alter their properties, but covalent functionalization has been synthetically challenging. Now, it has been shown that various organic groups can be covalently attached to MXene surfaces through amido and imido bonds. The resulting hybrid organic–inorganic structures exhibit Fano resonances and superior stability compared with traditional MXenes with a mixture of –F, –O and –OH surface terminations.

Quantum dots couple to form artificial molecules that allow for variable colour emission in response to an electric field.

Epitaxial crystal growth is widely used in electronics for the rational design of efficient devices. Here, Rupich et al. find a universal law for island size scaling, which outlines similarities and differences between self-assembly of nanocrystals and atomic epitaxial growth.

Charge trapping can lead to severe nonradiative losses in colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs). The authors report femtosecond electron diffraction measurements on photoexcited NCs to reveal atomic-scale insights into how localization of charges at trap sites induce surface deformations.

Multiple infrared lasing and detection technologies exploit intersubband transitions of epitaxial quantum wells, but such transitions are mainly limited to the mid-infrared. Here, the authors report narrow, polarized intersubband transitions up to telecom wavelengths in CdSe colloidal quantum wells.

The role of surface ligands in tuning the optoelectronic properties, controlling the stability and determining the performance in applications of colloidal nanocrystals is discussed in this Review.