The Unexpected Influence of Precursor Conversion Rate in the Synthesis of III-V Quantum Dots

Control of quantum dot (QD) precursor chemistry has been expected to help improve the size control and uniformity of III-V QDs such as indium phosphide and indium arsenide. Indeed, experimental results for other QD systems are consistent with the theoretical prediction that the rate of precursor conversion is an important factor controlling QD size and size distribution. We synthesized and characterized the reactivity of a variety of group-V precursors in order to determine if precursor chemistry could be used to improve the quality of III-V QDs. Despite slowing down precursor conversion rate by multiple orders of magnitude, the less reactive precursors do not yield the expected increase in size and improvement in size distribution. This result disproves the widely accepted explanation for the shortcoming of current III-V QD syntheses and points to the need for a new generalizable theoretical picture for the mechanism of QD formation and growth.