Spherical PbSe@SiO2 nanoparticles have been successfully synthesized within reverse micelles via metal alkoxide hydrolysis and condensation within a microemulsion system. These core-shell nanoparticles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), NIR absorption spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray analysis, and TEM electron diffractions. It shows that the obtained core-shell s...

We investigated the effect of PbSe quantum dot size on the performance of Schottky solar cells made in an ITO/PEDOT/PbSe/aluminum structure, varying the PbSe nanoparticle diameter from 1 to 3 nm. In this highly confined regime, we find that the larger particle bandgap can lead to higher open-circuit voltages (∼0.6 V), and thus an increase in overall efficiency compared to previously reported de...

Topological crystalline insulators are new states of matter in which the topological nature of electronic structures arises from crystal symmetries. Here we predict the first material realization of topological crystalline insulator in the semiconductor SnTe by identifying its non-zero topological index. We predict that as a manifestation of this non-trivial topology, SnTe has metallic surface ...

Different sizes of three-dimensional PbSe quantum dots have been synthesized for the study of orbital magnetic susceptibilities. Two types of orbital susceptibilities have been found, including the Curie susceptibility and finite-size corrections to the Landau susceptibility. The Curie term of a quantum dot manifests itself in the temperature dependence of magnetic susceptibility at low tempera...

In order to locate the optimal carrier concentrations for peaking the thermoelectric performance in p-type group IV monotellurides, existing efforts focus on aliovalent doping, either to increase (in PbTe) or to decrease (in SnTe and GeTe) the hole concentration. The limited solubility of aliovalent dopants usually introduces insufficient phonon scattering for thermoelectric performance maximiz...

The experimental observation of enhanced photoluminescence from high-Q silicon-based random photonic crystal microcavities embedded with PbSe colloidal quantum dots is being reported. The emission is optically excited at room temperature by a continuous-wave Ti-sapphire laser and exhibits randomly distributed localized modes with a minimum spectral linewidth of 4 nm at 1.5 μm wavelength.

Precious and base metal selenide minerals have been identified in gold-bearing carbonate veins cutting Middle Devonian limestones of the Torquay Limestone Group at Hope's Nose, Torquay. The selenide assemblage consists of clausthalite (PbSe), tiemannite (HgSe), klockmannite (CuSe), umangite (Cu3Se2), tyrrellite (Cu,Co,Ni)3Se4, trustedtite (Ni3Se4), penroseite (NiSe2), naumannite (AgzSe), eucair...

The transmittance values measured in IR reflection-absorption (RA) spectra were used to determine the optical constants of dielectric films laid on solid substrates. When the recorded spectra show interference fringes, one can determine the film thickness. The PbSe film thickness was obtained by interpreting the interference fringes from the reflexion-absorption IR spectra recorded at two diffe...

We demonstrate for the first time that impact ionization (II) (the inverse of Auger recombination) occurs with very high efficiency in semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs). Interband optical excitation of PbSe NCs at low pump intensities, for which less than one exciton is initially generated per NC on average, results in the formation of two or more excitons (carrier multiplication) when pump phot...