Mn-Substituted Inorganic−Organic Hybrid Materials Based on ZnSe: Nanostructures That May Lead to Magnetic Semiconductors with a Strong Quantum Confinement Effect

Abstract

Nanomaterials that make use of both electron charge and spin are highly desirable and extremely attractive in the development of new multifunctional devices for optoelectronics and information storage technology. In this study, we demonstrate that the hybrid nanostructures Zn1-xMnxSe(L)0.5 (L = ethylenediamine, 1,3-propanediamine) can be assembled with the substitution of Zn for Mn in the ZnSe(L)0.5 systems. The latter are composed of perfectly ordered ZnSe semiconductor nanolayers interconnected via organic molecules coordinately bonded to act as “linkers” or “spacers”. These hybrid nanostructures possess magnetically active periodic crystalline structures, which exhibit large blue shifts in their optical absorption edges (∼1.0−1.2 eV). Such shifts are a direct result of a very strong quantum confinement effect (QCE).