2017 Volume 38 Issue 1 Pages 18-23
Multinary I-III-VI2 group semiconductor nanocrystals, such as CuInS2, Cu(InGa)Se2, AgInS2 and their solid solutions with ZnS, have been attracting increasing attention due to their low toxicity, wide range of absorption from UV to visible or near-infrared regions, and tunable energy gap. In this review, we introduce recent progress of solution-phase syntheses of high-quality multinary nanocrystals, which are candidates for alternative materials of Cd- and Pb-based binary nanocrystals showing high toxicity. Physicochemical properties of multinary nanocrystals are tunable depending on their crystal size and chemical composition. For example, nanocrystals of solid solution between AgInS2 and ZnS exhibited strong photoluminescence, the color of which was controlled from red to green with an increase in the ZnS fraction. The controllability of their photochemical properties is useful to develop novel photofunctional materials for the applications, such as photocatalyst and biomolecule marker.
