Exciton dissociation and energy transfer at the quantized pentacene/lead-sulfide nanocrystal functional interface

Abstract

We investigated quantized-charge and energy transfer at the pentacene/lead sulfide (PbS) interface through realization of PbS nanocrystal (NC) size-dependent quantum confinement effect, providing insights into the presence of triplet exciton dissociation and energy transfer. With PbS nanocrystals (NCs) of a small size (∼3 nm), quantized charge and energy transfer at the pentacene/PbS NC interface leads to a large photocurrent while PbS NCs of a large size (∼7 nm) causes a far reduced photocurrent. Through comparison between the normal and inverted structures, importantly, exciton dissociation and energy transfer are turned out to be sensitive to subtle structural change at the interface.