Micrometer-Scale Carrier Transport in the Solid Film of Giant CdSe/CdS Nanocrystals Imaged by Transient Absorption Microscopy

For the practical applications in solar cells and photodetectors, semiconductor colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) are assembled into a high-concentration film with carrier transport characteristics, the full understanding and effective control of which are critical for the achievement of high light-to-electricity conversion efficiencies. Here we have applied transient absorption microscopy to the solid film of giant CdSe/CdS NCs and discovered that at high pump fluences the carrier transport could reach a long distance of similar to 2 mu m within similar to 30 ps after laser pulse excitation. This intriguing behavior is attributed to the metal-insulator transition and the associated bandlike transport, which are promoted by the enhanced electronic coupling among neighboring NCs with extended wave functions overlap of the excited-state charge carriers. Besides providing fundamental transport information in the regime of high laser pump fluences, the above findings shed light on the rational design of high-power light detecting schemes based on colloidal NCs.