Ternary Alloyed ZnSexTe1-x Nanowires: Solution-Phase Synthesis and Band Gap Bowing

Ternary alloyed semiconductor nanostructures have attracted increasingly greater attention due to their unique physiochemical properties that may not be available in the parent binary systems. In this work, we report the solution-liquid-solid (SLS) growth of colloidal, uniform ZnSexTe1-x nanowires (NWs), the composition of which can be tuned over a wide range by manipulating the growth rate of multicomponent constituents. Two sets of ZnSexTe1-x NWs with high compositional homogeneities are synthesized by using zinc stearate (Zn(St)(2)) and diethyl zinc (Zn(Et)(2)) as the Zn precursor, respectively. The resultant NWs are systematically characterized with respect to the structure, composition, and optical band gap, and on the basis of these, the composition dependence of band gaps is extracted. Both sets of colloidal ZnSexTe1-x NWs are found to exhibit strong band bowing with the band gap minimum occurring at x = 0.30, which is consistent with the previously reported results based on ZnSexTe1-x bulk materials and thin films.