Willhammar, T;
Sentosun, K;
Mourdikoudis, S;
Goris, B;
Kurttepeli, M;
Bercx, M;
Lamoen, D;
... Van Tendeloo, G; + view all
(2017)
Structure and vacancy distribution in copper telluride nanoparticles influence plasmonic activity in the near-infrared.
Nature Communications
, 8
, Article 14925. 10.1038/ncomms14925.
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Abstract
Copper chalcogenides find applications in different domains including photonics, photothermal therapy and photovoltaics. CuTe nanocrystals have been proposed as an alternative to noble metal particles for plasmonics. Although it is known that deviations from stoichiometry are a prerequisite for plasmonic activity in the near-infrared, an accurate description of the material and its (optical) properties is hindered by an insufficient understanding of the atomic structure and the influence of defects, especially for materials in their nanocrystalline form. We demonstrate that the structure of Cu1.5±xTe nanocrystals can be determined using electron diffraction tomography. Real-space high-resolution electron tomography directly reveals the three-dimensional distribution of vacancies in the structure. Through first-principles density functional theory, we furthermore demonstrate that the influence of these vacancies on the optical properties of the nanocrystals is determined. Since our methodology is applicable to a variety of crystalline nanostructured materials, it is expected to provide unique insights concerning structure–property correlations.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Structure and vacancy distribution in copper telluride nanoparticles influence plasmonic activity in the near-infrared |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1038/ncomms14925 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14925 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2017. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Multidisciplinary Sciences, Science & Technology - Other Topics, AUTOMATED DIFFRACTION TOMOGRAPHY, ROTATION ELECTRON-DIFFRACTION, CATION-EXCHANGE, ATOMIC-SCALE, NANOCRYSTALS, CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, APPROXIMATION, MICROSCOPY, TOOLBOX, SHAPE |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10027957 |
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