Colloidal Synthesis

The colloidal synthesis technique is a conventional method for producing inorganic nanocrystals such as semiconductors and metals. The colloidal syntheses of nanoparticles have attracted the interest of researchers due to their fascinating properties and technological applications in for example, catalysis, display applications, medical diagnostics, and photovoltaic.

Our group has illustrated the usefulness and the advantages of the colloidal synthesis protocol for preparing colloidal nanocrystals based on ligand-assisted reprecipitation in HF. The colloidal NCs demonstrated excellent compositional and emission stability under ambient conditions. Moreover, the NCs could be processed from solution into uniform, transparent, and flexible NC-polymer composite films. Additionally, we employed the fabricated composite films as X-ray scintillators. The scintillators, based on NCs, exhibit promising properties for X-ray imaging applications, like a high spatial resolution, a low detection limit, and high emission stability under continuous X-ray irradiation. This combination of X-ray performance properties is much better than that of previously reported scintillators based on metal halide perovskite NCs. This work, therefore, extends our knowledge of the chemistry of NCs and offers a new class of red-emitting colloidal nanocrystals, which have great potential for different down-conversion applications. In another study, using a ligand-assisted strategy, we synthesized ultrastable and quantum-confined perovskite QDs exhibiting bright-red emissions. Moreover, we also investigate the charge-carrier dynamics of these materials, with transient spectroscopic techniques ,to better understand the multiple exciton generation (MEG), and charge transfers (CT) at QD interfaces. Such information is crucial for increasing the conversion efficiency of QD based-solar cell devices. Furthermore, In our lab, we investigate several aspects of noble metal molecular nanoparticles, MMNPs. These involve the establishment of new methods to enhance their functionality either by ligand exchange or incorporating mixed ligands, the development of high-resolution separation techniques such as gel electrophoresis and ultracentrifugation, in addition to their utilization as active sites in solar, catalytic, electrochemical and photocatalytic materials. We also engaged in crystallization of these nanoclusters for better understanding their fascinating properties.