Metal-Organic Liquid Crystals as Single-Source Precursors for Semiconductor Nanocrystals

大分子、超分子和纳米化学（MSN）项目资助加州大学圣地亚哥分校的Andrea R. Tao研究开发制备半导体纳米结构的新方法。这些结构在光学领域有广泛的应用，如无线通信、遥感和生物成像。在精确控制化学和物理性质的情况下合成它们的能力对于理解光如何在纳米尺度上与物质相互作用以及充分利用它们令人兴奋的技术应用非常重要。为了产生更广泛的影响，这项工作将研究与指导、教育和推广相结合。这项工作通过研究实习和面向高中教育工作者的纳米科学短期课程，促进了大学预科阶段的纳米科学教育，特别注意将代表性不足的少数民族和妇女纳入其中。本研究旨在发现和开发新的合成途径，以获得具有精确控制化学成分和形态的新型低维半导体纳米材料。该方法涉及到金属有机液晶的合成，这些液晶将作为铜硫族化物纳米晶体成核和生长的前体。这些材料是为了研究红外波段的局部表面等离子体共振而合成的。通过合理设计液晶前驱体的化学组成、化学计量、分子结构和超分子顺序，对所得到的纳米晶体的载流子密度、大小和形状进行编程。在这项研究中开发的合成技术也被扩展到具有定制光学，电子和化学性质的金属硫族纳米材料的整个工具箱的开发。

The Macromolecular, Supramolecular, and Nanochemistry (MSN) Program is funding Andrea R. Tao of the University of California, San Diego for research to develop new methods to prepare semiconductor nanostructures. These structures have a wide variety of applications in optics, such as wireless telecommunication, remote sensing, and bioimaging. The ability to synthesize them with precisely controlled chemical and physical properties is important to understand how light interacts with matter at the nanoscale and to fully exploit their exciting technological applications. To achieve broader impact, this work integrates research with mentoring, education, and outreach. This work promotes nanoscience education at the pre-college level through research internships and short courses in nanoscience for high school educators, with particular attention given to the inclusion of underrepresented minorities and women.This research aims to discover and develop novel synthetic pathways for achieving new low-dimensional semiconductor nanomaterials with precisely controlled chemical compositions and morphologies. The approach involves the synthesis of metal-organic liquid crystals that are to serve as precursors for the nucleation and growth of copper chalcogenide nanocrystals. These materials are being synthesized for the study of localized surface plasmon resonance in the infrared wavelengths. The carrier density, sizes, and shapes of the resulting nanocrystals are programmed by rationally designing the chemical composition, stoichiometry, molecular structure, and supramolecular order of the liquid crystal precursor. The synthetic techniques developed in this study are also being extended towards the development of an entire toolbox of metal chalcogenide nanomaterials with tailored optical, electronic, and chemical properties.