Paper EN+EM+NS-MoA6
Role of Quantized and Mid-Gap States in “Dark” Charge Transport and Photoconductivity in Semiconductor Nanocrystal Films

Monday, October 31, 2011, 3:40 pm, Room 103

Colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) have attracted significant interest for applications in solution-processable devices such as light-emitting diodes and solar cells. However, poor understanding of charge transport in NC assemblies, specifically the relation between electrical conductance in dark and under light illumination, hinders their technological applicability. Here, we simultaneously address the issues of "dark" transport and photoconductivity in films of PbS NCs by incorporating them into optical field-effect transistors (OFETs), in which the channel conductance is controlled by both gate voltage and incident radiation. Spectrally resolved photoresponses of OFETs reveal a weakly conductive mid-gap band (MGB) which is responsible for charge transport in dark. The mechanism for conductance, however, changes under illumination when it becomes dominated by band-edge quantized states. In this case, the MGB still plays an important role as its occupancy (tuned by the gate voltage) controls the dynamics of band-edge charges. Our study has broad implications for NC-based electronics and optoelectronics, and specifically, suggests that design guidelines for NC devices might be different depending on whether they are intended for operation in dark (diodes and transistors) or under illumination (photodetectors and solar cells).