| Project Detail |
Safer, affordable NIR detectors for a greener future
Near-infrared (NIR) light detection is essential for applications such as environmental monitoring, night vision, and remote imaging. However, current NIR detectors are made from expensive, toxic materials, limiting their use in many areas, including healthcare. These materials are not only costly, but also harmful to the environment and human health. Safer alternatives exist, but are still in the early stages of development. With the support of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SolProDet project is developing new, safer NIR detectors using silver chalcogenide-based quantum dots (QDs). The project focuses on improving these materials and designing better devices, aiming to create NIR detectors that are both effective and environmentally friendly.
Self-powered near-infrared (NIR: 0.7–2.5 µm) deteSelf-powered near-infrared (NIR: 0.7–2.5 µm) detection technologies attract immense interest both from scientists and industry experts due to their vital applications in environmental monitoring, night vision, and imaging in remote locations. However, available conventional NIR photodetectors (PDs) are based on costly fabricated inorganic semiconductor materials or toxic heavy metal-containing quantum dots (QDs), which restrict their use in electronics and biomedical applications. Silver chalcogenide-based (Ag2E, E= S, Se, Te) QDs have recently joined as new promising toxic heavy metal-free materials for NIR detection, making them appealing from health and environmental safety perspectives. Nevertheless, the development of Ag2E-based NIR PDs is in its initial stage and far behind the commercially available devices due to the lack of protocols for device-relevant thin film fabrication with favourable device architecture.
In this project, we propose a novel approach to solve this issue, which consists of two strategies: (i) chemical synthesis of small Ag2E and MAgE alloyed QDs followed by thin film preparation with favourable legend and thickness, (ii) PD architecture with proper electrode and electrode distance. To achieve this, the first strategy will develop synthesis protocols to control the size of Ag2E QDs and optimize their absorption and electronic properties by ligand exchange for NIR PDs application with different metal electrodes and electrode distances. In the next stage, the potential metal alloy will be introduced into Ag2E QDs by cation exchange, followed by studying the optical and electrical properties to optimize the synthesis and thin film quality for self-powered NIR PDs. In the last stage, the work will concentrate on the optimization of photodiodes using the best-suited Ag2E and MAgE QDs and demonstrate the application potential and related extensive characterization of these devices for upscaling. |
