The properties which originate from intrinsic defects of metal oxide nanocrystals have attracted great attractions. Compared to the diversity of extrinsic defects engineering strategies, Intrinsic defect control mechanism is not well understood and its tunability is limited. We found that adding inert metal salt can be used as a new practical design principle for controlling the intrinsic defects concentration during the synthesis of metal oxide NCs. Our results show that the presence of spectator metal salts during the NCs' lattice formation promotes dissociation of metal precursors, which is the origin of intrinsic defects. By changing the initial amount of sodium oleate in the oleyl alcohol, we observed that concentration of oxygen vacancy can be controlled up to 9 % in indium oxide nanocrystals. Besides, by demonstrating intrinsic defect generations in various metal oxide nanocrystals and with different spectator metal salts, we confirmed that this method can be applied to various systems.

Control of intrinsic defects in metal oxide nanocrystals using non-incorporative metal salts

ACS Spring 2022

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