Doping of Semiconductors at Nanoscale with Microwave Heating (Overview)

Abstract

Incorporation of dopants efficiently in semiconductors at the nanoscale is an open challenge and is also essential to tune the conductivity. Typically, heating is a necessary step during nanomaterials’ solution growth either as pristine or doped products. Usually, conventional heating induces the diffusion of dopant atoms into host nanocrystals towards the surface at the time of doped sample growth. However, the dielectric heating by microwave irradiation minimizes this dopant diffusion problem and accelerates precursors’ reaction, which certainly improves the doping yield and reduces processing costs. The microwave radiation provides rapid and homogeneous volumetric heating due to its high penetration depth, which is crucial for the uniform distribution of dopants inside nanometer-scale semiconducting materials. This chapter discusses the effective uses of microwave heating for high-quality nanomaterials synthesis in a solution where doping is necessary to tune the electronic and optoelectronic properties for various applications.