Abstract

Wet-chemically synthesized semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs), also known as colloidal quantum dots, have in the past decade been extensively exploited in applications as diverse as chemical sensing, bio-imaging and solution processed optoelectronics due to their salient optical properties and chemical processability. Current synthetic efforts in the field have been focused on integrating multiple material components within the same nanostructure in order to achieve multiple functionalities or derive unique optoelectronic properties that result from strong coupling interactions between the different material components. While the idea of being able to synthesize a semiconductor NC of any arbitrary shape with a desired combination of physicochemical properties may seem far-fetched, recent advances in the synthesis of semiconductor NCs suggest that such a notion may in fact be possible. In this talk I will describe efforts in our group, as well as those of others, to fabricate anisotropic semiconductor nanostructures with a variety of nano-sized materials deposited at specific regions of the semiconductor structure, thus profoundly influencing its properties. I will attempt to show how the synthetic methods introduced by these efforts culminate in the systematic build-up of structurally complex semiconductor NCs with unusual physical properties that can perhaps open up new avenues by way of applications.