03.05.19 – The chemistry of metal oxides: a rewarding challenge!

The ability to tune thin oxide coatings by wet-chemistry is desirable for many applications, yet it remains a key synthetic challenge. In this work, we introduce a general colloidal atomic layer deposition (c-ALD) synthesis to grow an alumina shell with tunable thickness around a nanocrystalline core of various compositions spanning from ionic semiconductors (i.e., CsPbX3, with X=Br, I, Cl) to metal oxides and metals (i.e., CeO2 and Ag). As one example of the opportunities offered by the growth of a thin oxide shell, we study the anion exchange reaction in the CsPbX3 perovskites nanocrystals by in-situ X-ray diffraction, a study impeded so far by the instability of these class of materials and by the fast exchange kinetics. Learn more here!