QD OPTOELECTRONICS

With emerging technologies such as autonomous driving and augmented reality the demand of infrared (IR) photodetectors in the market is increasing. However, today’s IR photodetectors are based on epitaxially grown semiconductors such as HgCdTe that are expensive. Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) offer a cheap option for IR photodetectors, but their performance lacks behind that of current commercial devices due to the presence of “traps”.

We are developing highly performing QD photodetectors by finding and fixing these traps, and controlling their doping density. Our work on QD optoelectronics involves the characterization of surface traps and doping by spectroelectrochemical methods.