Publication date: 15th December 2025
The morphology of colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) is dictated by various factors, including reaction conditions, surface ligands, and intrinsic crystal structure. This shape inherently alters the growth mechanism, profoundly impacting the size uniformity and wavelength tunability of the nanoparticles.
Among heavy-metal-free CQDs, InAs has garnered significant attention for its broad spectral coverage. Recently, syntheses employing cost-effective and mildly reactive amino-As precursors have become mainstream, predominantly yielding tetrahedral InAs CQDs. While these faceted nanoparticles are advantageous for volumetric red-shifting, they may induce a reaction-dependent growth pathway. Consequently, this imposes kinetic barriers, typically requiring high reaction temperatures and prolonged growth times to reach target wavelengths.
In this study, we report the synthesis of spherical amino-As-based InAs CQDs for the first time by manipulating surface ligand sterics. This finding implies that the conventional tetrahedral shape stems from the small bulkiness (low steric hindrance) of chloride (Cl) ligands. Furthermore, by systematically tuning the ligand ratio, we induced a "shape-driven" morphological transition from sphere to tetrahedron during growth. Through this morphological evolution, we successfully achieved deep-SWIR absorption at 1.7 μm with an exceptional volumetric efficiency—requiring only a 1.7-fold volume increase, effectively bypassing the 6.4-fold increase expected in conventional growth models.
European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 101002306), the European Union under grant agreement No 101119489 (2DNeuralvision) and Project PID2024-161119OB-I00 funded by MICIU/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033/FEDER, UE, the Fundació Privada Cellex, the program CERCA and ‘Severo Ochoa’ Centre of Excellence.
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