Cu2O quantum dots emitting visible light grown by atomic layer deposition

This paper reports the fabrication of the Cu2O quantum dots (QDs) emitting a controlled wavelength in the visible spectral range prepared by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Cu2O thin film layers formed on the Al2O3 surface showed large density of islands via Volmer-Weber growth mode, which resulting in QD formation. As the number of ALD cycles was increased from 60 to 480, the spatial density and mean diameter of the Cu2O QDs increased systematically from 4.02 × 1011/cm2 to 2.56×1012/cm2 and from 2.1 to 3.2 nm, respectively. The absorption spectral results indicated that the electron energy transition in the Cu2O QDs was a direct process with the optical band gaps decreasing from 2.71 to 2.15 eV with increasing QD size from 2.1 to 3.2 nm because of the quantum confinement effect. The Cu2O QDs showed broad emission peaks composed of multiple elementary emission spectra corresponding to the Cu2O QD ensembles with a different size distribution. As the size of Cu2O QDs decreased, the shoulder peaks at the higher energy side developed due to the quantum confinement effect.