Colloidal transparent conducting oxide nanocrystals: A new infrared plasmonic material

Abstract

Thin films of transparent conducting oxides (TCO) are technologically important for applications as a visible light transparent electrode in a wide variety of optoelectronic devices. In the last few years, researchers started to explore novel size- and shape-dependent properties of TCO, where the crystallite size is ∼10 nm. So far, the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties of TCO nanocrystals (NCs) have been found to be the most interesting. TCOs like Sn-doped In2O3, Al-doped ZnO and In-doped CdO NCs, exhibit LSPR band in near- to mid-infrared region. LSPR from a TCO NC exhibits many intrinsic differences with that of a metal NC. Carrier density in a TCO NC can easily be tuned by controlling the dopant concentration, which allows the LSPR band to be tuned over a range of ∼2000 nm (∼0.62 eV) in the near- to mid-infrared region. This review discusses recent advances in the understanding of plasmonic properties of various TCO NCs and highlights the potential applications of such unique plasmonic properties.