Exploring many-body phenomena: biexciton generation and auger recombination in Ag2S-based nanocrystals

Victor Vega-Mayoral; Saül Garcia-Orrit; Peijiang Wang; Rafael Morales-Márquez; Emma Martín Rodríguez; Beatriz H. Juárez; Juan Cabanillas-Gonzalez

doi:10.1039/D5NR00511F

Exploring many-body phenomena: biexciton generation and auger recombination in Ag₂S-based nanocrystals†

Victor Vega-Mayoral,

*^ab Saül Garcia-Orrit,^a Peijiang Wang,

^c Rafael Morales-Márquez,

^c Emma Martín Rodríguez,

^def Beatriz H. Juárez

*^c and Juan Cabanillas-Gonzalez

^ab

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a IMDEA Nanoscience, Faraday 9, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain
E-mail: victor.vega@imdea.org

^b Unidad de Nanomateriales Avanzados, IMDEA-Nanociencia, Unidad Asociada al CSIC por el ICMM. C/Faraday 9, Madrid, Spain

^c Materials Science Institute of Madrid, ICMM, Spanish Research Council, CSIC, C/Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, 3, Madrid, Spain
E-mail: bh.juarez@csic.es

^d Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/Francisco Tomás y Valiente 7, Madrid, Spain

^e Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria (IRYCIS), Ctra. Colmenar Viejo, km. 9100, 28034 Madrid, Spain

^f Institute for Advanced Research in Chemistry (IAdChem), Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain

Abstract

The optoelectronic properties of Ag₂S nanocrystals with different surface passivation treatments have been investigated using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. Plain Ag₂S nanocrystals and improved surface-passivated nanostructures were studied under different pump fluences and photon energies. Surface passivation significantly sharpens excitonic resonances, reducing defect-assisted recombination. Transient absorption spectroscopy reveals that the excited state dynamics are dominated by trapping and exciton recombination at low exciton densities, while fluence dependence studies reveal significant contributions from biexcitons and Auger recombination in all samples at high exciton densities. Notably, surface-passivated nanostructures exhibit faster multi-exciton recombination dynamics, highlighting the impact of effective surface passivation.

This article is part of the themed collection: Editor’s Choice Collection: Advances and Perspectives in Nanoscale Materials and Optoelectronics

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D5NR00511F
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 04 Feb 2025
Accepted: 17 Mar 2025
First published: 18 Mar 2025
This article is Open Access

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Nanoscale, 2025,17, 15697-15705

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Exploring many-body phenomena: biexciton generation and auger recombination in Ag₂S-based nanocrystals

V. Vega-Mayoral, S. Garcia-Orrit, P. Wang, R. Morales-Márquez, E. Martín Rodríguez, B. H. Juárez and J. Cabanillas-Gonzalez, Nanoscale, 2025, 17, 15697 DOI: 10.1039/D5NR00511F

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