Ligand-exchange-assisted printing of colloidal nanocrystals to enable all-printed sub-micron optoelectronics

Zhixuan Zhao, Ran An, Yu Liu, Byung Ku Jung, Jun Hyuk Ahn, Ni Yang, Guodan Wei, Wallace C. H. Choy, Lain-Jong Li, Soong Ju Oh, Ji Tae Kim () and Tianshuo Zhao ()
Additional contact information
Zhixuan Zhao: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Ran An: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Yu Liu: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Byung Ku Jung: Seongbuk-Gu
Jun Hyuk Ahn: Seongbuk-Gu
Ni Yang: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Guodan Wei: Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School-Tsinghua University
Wallace C. H. Choy: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Lain-Jong Li: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Soong Ju Oh: Seongbuk-Gu
Ji Tae Kim: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong
Tianshuo Zhao: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract Additive manufacturing enables customised device fabrication for emerging sensing technologies. However, printable (opto)electronic devices with sophisticated architectures, including all-printed photodiodes, face challenges in multi-material and multi-layer printing at micro- and nanoscales with low processing temperatures. Herein, we establish a nano-resolution printing method based on electrohydrodynamic printing (EHDP) to deposit inks from the colloidal nanocrystal (NC) library, followed by in situ room-temperature ligand exchange to functionalise the NC solids. This general approach enables layer-by-layer printing with wide selections of NC inks, ligand reagents, substrates, and device architectures. Chemical-treatment-induced contraction and densification grants printed Ag NC structures electrical conductivity and an achievable feature size and filling ratio of 70 nm and 75%, respectively, constructing wide-gamut structural colour gratings. By exploiting Ag, Au, PbS, and ZnO NCs and compact ligands, we demonstrate all-printed multi-layer infrared photodiodes with sub-10-µm pixel sizes. The nano-printing assembly of hetero-NCs promises the facile integration of multi-functional micro-nano devices.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64596-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-64596-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-64596-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().