Self-purification in semiconductor nanocrystals

Doping of nanocrystals is an important and very difficult task. Self-purification mechanisms are often claimed to make this task even more difficult, as the distance a defect or impurity must move to reach the surface of a nanocrystal is very small. We show that self-purification can be explained through energetic arguments and is an intrinsic property of defects in semiconductor nanocrystals. We find the formation energies of defects increases as the size of the nanocrystal decreases. We analyze the case of Mn-doped CdSe nanocrystals and compare our results to experimental findings.