1D Colloidal Hetero‐Nanomaterials with Programmed Semiconductor Morphology and Metal Location for Enhancing Solar Energy Conversion

Tuning the photo-induced properties of a material requires the construction of particular nanostructures with controlled composition and morphology. Structural reconstruction of colloidal nanocrystal provides a flexible and practical strategy for creating ingenious heteronanostructures of relevance for applications. Unique binary -[ZnS-CdS]-ZnS-[ZnS-CdS]-ZnS- heteronanorods were synthesized by integrating one ZnS nanorod with segmented CdS tetrahedron sheaths, which can be further constructed ternary multi-tetrahedron sheath -[ZnS-(CdS/Au)]-ZnS-[ZnS-(CdS/Au)]-ZnS- heteronanorods with Au nanoparticles only being grown on the vertexes and edges of CdS tetrahedron sheaths. The well-steered charge flow in designed ternary system can effectively facilitate the separation and transfer of interfacial photo-generated charge carriers, leading to the performance improvement in photo-electric/chemical conversion applications.