Mercury telluride (HgTe) is commonly used with cadmium telluride (CdTe) as an alloy semiconductor (HgCdTe) for infrared photodetectors because of the narrow band-gap that is tuneable across the infrared. A major challenge is that processing of these alloys requires high<br/>temperature synthesis which can be problematic given the toxicity of mercury and cadmium. Quantum dots of HgTe have emerged as a possible solution for IR devices due to a high degree of control over the band-gap, but they often still require high temperature methods. A simpler route to synthesizing HgTe nanoplatelets (NPL) has been found through a room temperature cation exchange by introducing mercury salts to CdTe NPL. This results in stable and highly emissive HeTe NPL (~900 nm) with thickness of only a few atoms and large lateral surface areas. Current results show that the surface chemistry of these nanoplatelets can have significant effects on the wavelength of emission. The type of surface capping ligands and their relative amount of coverage can be used to introduce emission further into the short wave infrared (SWIR) as well as tune it from 1000-1500 nm with high photoluminescence quantum yields. Herein we aim to understand the role of surface ligands on the NPL in order to gain insight on the mechanisms of this emission and develop synthetic methods for controlling it.

Tuneable emission in mercury chalcogenide nanoplatelets

2019 Fall National Meeting

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