Engineering indium phosphide quantum dots for solar-driven energy conversion applications

Abstract

Colloidal indium phosphide (InP) quantum dots (QDs) have emerged as a compelling class of heavy metal-free nanomaterials due to their low toxicity and size-tunable optoelectronic properties, showing great potential in solar-driven energy conversion applications. Here, a variety of synthetic techniques for preparing high-quality InP QDs, including hot-injection, heat-up, cluster-mediated growth, and cation exchange, are thoroughly reviewed. To realize enhanced photocatalytic (PC) and photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance, diverse strategies such as core/shell engineering, hybrid ligand modification and elemental doping of InP QDs are discussed in detail, which are beneficial to build various efficient QDs-based systems for hydrogen evolution, CO₂ reduction, ammonia synthesis, and H₂O₂ production. Moreover, the main challenges and future research directions of InP QDs are briefly proposed, providing guidelines to achieve future low-cost, eco-friendly, scalable and high-efficiency QDs-based solar energy conversion technologies.