Structure | Quasi-spherical[121] or faceted nanocrystalline core[122] | Quasi-spherical[123] or faceted nanocrystalline core[124] | Crystalline (graphitic)[125] or amorphous carbon core (often with irregular shape)[126] |
Capping ligands[127] | Capping ligands[8] | Surface functional groups[128] |
Stoichiometric composition | Nonstoichiometric composition[14] | Nonstoichiometric carbon core and surface[129] |
Mainly surface defects[130] | Abundant inner (intrinsic)/surface defects[131] | Multi energy levels and abundant inner/surface defects[132, 133] |
Synthesis | Organometallic hot-injection method[134] | Organometallic hot-injection
method[135, 136] | Both up-side-down[137] and bottom-up methods[138] |
Ionic reactions[139] | Ionic reactions[56] | Radical reactions[140] |
Precise size and shape control[141] | Challenging: balance of cation reactivity[142] | Challenging: difficult to control; prefer organic synthetic methods |
Relatively mature doping[143] and heterojunction[144] construction;
| Competition of core/shell[145] vs. interfacial alloying[146];
| Doping[147] and heterojunction[148] construction: lots of study but very difficult for precise control[149] |
Profound understanding of growth kinetics and synthetic chemistry | Difficult to obtain clear heterojuntions | Growth kinetics and synthetic chemistry: complicated reaction intermediates and byproducts[150] |
Optical properties | Narrow PL peak[151], high PL QYs, small stokes shift, short lifetime (for band edge emission)[152] | New: large stokes shift, wide PL peak, long lifetime[152, 153] | New: excitation-dependent emission, wide PL peak (multi states), long lifetime (fl & pl), up conversion [154, 155] |
Quantum size effect: clear[156] | Quantum size effect[1]: challenging (composition-dependent)
| Quantum size effect: unclear (unkown core composition & surface groups) |
Extinction coefficient: clear | Only CuInS2[157] | No report |
Mechanism: interband recombination & surface defect trap states [158] | Mechanism: DAP recombination[159] | Mechanism: sp2 domain-induced interband PL, surface molecular emission, AIE, etc.
|
Band gap engineering[160] and wavefunction engineering[161] | Band gap engineering[162] and wave function engineering[163]: size-, composition and structure dependent[14] | Band gap engineering and wavefunction engineering: very challenging[154, 155] |
Photocatalysis | Combined Homogeneous/
heterogeneous photocataly-
sis[164, 165] | Heavy metal free[166] | Contribute on light absorption[119, 167] |
High absorbance[160]; high surface area[168] | Continuous band gap tuning via composition[14] | Charge separation and cocatalysts[169, 170] |
Type-II heterojunction for efficient charge separation[171, 172] | Long lifetime[173] | Photogenerated e-/h+, photogenerated protons and photo-controlled electron transfer[23] |
Charge carrier dynamics:100% AQE | Delicate manipulation and utilization of intrinsic and surface defects[174] | Multi electron donating/accepting[175] |