SBIR Phase I: A New Scale-up Technology for Industrial Production of High Quality Semiconductor Nanocrystals

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project intends to develop a new technology for the industrial production of high quality semiconductor nanocrystals. Semiconductor nanocrystals are nanometer sized fragments of the corresponding bulk crystals, which have shown great potential for a variety of electronic and optoelectronic applications. At present, all of those commercial applications rely on the availability of high quality semiconductor nanocrystals on a large scale with an affordable price. The new design maximizes the power of the existing batch synthetic schemes developed in academic institutions, although it possesses a continuous production nature. In this way, the quality and the quantity of the resulting nanocrystals are both guaranteed and the optimization of the production is minimized. The proposed technology should be extendable to the industrial production of other types of colloidal nanocrystals as long as the related batch synthesis is available. The commercial value of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals in the field of electronic and optoelectronic applications lies on large area display, portable electronic devices, imprinting of integrated circuits, solar cells, etc. A multi-billion dollar market for the production of those electronic devices is in rapid development. For all of those devices, colloidal nanocrystals with an affordable price play a vital role, and will have a significant share of the market. It can be predicted that the success of any of those active commercial developments will open an economically significant market for the production of high quality semiconductor nanocrystals. It is also true that the existence of a commercial production technology with an affordable price will promote all of those commercial efforts on electronic and optoelectronic applications of nanocrystals