Synthesis of N-Type Plasmonic Oxide Nanocrystals and the Optical and Electrical Characterization of their Transparent Conducting Films

We present a general synthesis for a family of n-type transparent conducting oxide nanocrystals through doping with aliovalent cations. These monodisperse nanocrystals exhibit localized surface plasmon resonances tunable in the mid- and near-infrared with increasing dopant concentration. We employ a battery of electrical measurements to demonstrate that the plasmonic resonance in isolated particles is consistent with the electronic properties of oxide nanocrystal thin films. Hall and Seebeck measurements show that the particles form degenerately doped n-type solids with free electron concentrations in the range of 10 19 to 10 21 cm –3 . These heavily doped oxide nanocrystals are used as the building blocks of conductive, n-type thin films with high visible light transparency.