Exchange-coupled donor dimers in nanocrystal quantum dots.

Doping of semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) is expected to enable the control of key NC properties, yet its practical exploitation requires an understanding of exchange interactions when multiple dopants are incorporated in a single NC. Here, we experimentally probe the exchange of donor dimers in NCs via a deviation of their triplet-state magnetic resonance from Curie paramagnetism. We show that the exchange coupling of the closely spaced donors can be well described by effective mass theory, which allows the consideration of statistical effects crucial in NC ensembles. While a dimer induces discrete states in a NC, their energy splitting differs by up to 3 orders of magnitude for randomly placed dimers in a NC ensemble, due to an enormous dependence of the exchange energy on the dimer configuration.

Electronic transport in phosphorus-doped silicon nanocrystal networks.

We have investigated the role of doping and paramagnetic states on the electronic transport of networks assembled from freestanding Si nanocrystals (Si-NCs). Electrically detected magnetic resonance (EDMR) studies on Si-NCs films, which show a strong increase of conductivity with doping of individual Si-NCs, reveal that P donors and Si dangling bonds contribute to dark conductivity via spin-dependent hopping, whereas in photoconductivity, these states act as spin-dependent recombination centers of photogenerated electrons and holes. Comparison between EDMR and conventional electron paramagnetic resonance shows that different subsets of P-doped nanocrystals contribute to the different transport processes.