(Invited) Facile Manufacturing of Colloidal Nanocrystals to Macroscale Film

Abstract

Design of nanostructured films using colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) has received significant attention because NC films can be utilized for a wide range of applications. Conventional solution processes with colloidal NCs such as spin-coating, dip coating, and spray coating have been generally utilized for the solution-based NC film fabrication. However, these conventional film fabrication methods have limitations of mechanical robustness, film uniformity, and production of thick film. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique is an alternative deposition process to overcome the limitation of traditional solution-based film fabrication methods. EPD can provide enhanced electrical conductivity, a dense film, high mechanical stability, and controllability of the film morphology. Owing to these advantages, NC films fabricated using EPD have been studied for various applications and found to exhibit better performance compared to those obtained via traditional solution processes. This EPD technique can easily manipulates the movement of charged particles in a suspension under an electric field using a wide range of parameters such as electrical condition, suspension parameters, and distance between electrodes. Through the control of such key parameters, we demonstrated that the deposition mechanism can be switched leading to different morphologies of the NC film. In addition, the migration of NCs toward electrodes was observed through in-situ techniques.