This is part of a double webinar featuring Prof. Hannah Joyce
Semiconductor nanomaterials – where one or more dimensions lie in the sub-micron regime – are now widely studied as a route to create novel or enhanced optoelectronic materials. From colloidal quantum dots to VLS-grown nanowires, these materials provide opportunities through controlled light-matter coupling and high surface-area-to-volume ratio. Functional nanomaterials combine multiple features to meet specific applications in photovoltaics, light emission, lasing or sensing by exploiting this geometry. A particular opportunity is provided by bottom-up growth of nanomaterials, generating huge numbers of near-identical nanoscale objects through thermodynamically driven processes.
However, growth at the nanoscale is vulnerable to inhomogeneity. Heterogeneity in morphology (shape), geometry (size), crystal structure (polytypism), doping, strain, and defect density are inherent to nanofabrication, and these may have a large and non-linear impact on functional performance (such as IQE or lasing threshold). I will describe a high-throughput methodology to study inhomogeneity in nanowires, and its use to both optimize and exploit variability. By studying large numbers of single wires (10k-100k), recombination routes, carrier mobility, doping and even sub-picosecond dynamics can be extracted using simple photoluminescence techniques.
About the speaker
Patrick Parkinson is a senior lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. Since 2020 he has led a UKRI-funded program on “Big-data for nanoelectronics”, combining high-throughput techniques with functional nanomaterials to build statistically rigorous models. This project includes academic and industrial partners in the UK, China, Australia, Germany, Israel and Sweden. He has previously worked in postdoctoral roles at the University of Oxford and the Australian National University, in Physics, Chemistry and Electronic Materials departments. He completed his PhD in Organic-Inorganic Optoelectronic Nanomaterials with Prof. Laura Herz at the University of Oxford in 2009.