Nanopowder Compounds

Lead sulfide nanoparticles are an important IV-VI group semiconductor, which has attracted much attention because of its special small direct-band gap and large excitonic Bohr radius of 18 nm. It has a high dielectric constant and very high carrier mobility. Hence Lead sulfide nanoparticles (NPs) show strong quantum size effects for relatively large size.

Lead (II) sulfide (PbS) has attracted much attention for its well-known narrow bandgap semiconducting features. PbS is chosen for this work because it is commercially available and can also be synthesized easily.

Lead sulfide (PbS) is an important IV-VI semiconductor material with a rock-salt structure (cubic face-centered lattice). Lead sulfide nanoparticles are used in optoelectronic applications such as field-effect transistors, optical switches,  and solar cells. Lead sulfide nanoparticles with different shapes such as rods, stars, spheres and branched structures have been synthesized using diverse synthetic routes.

Lead sulfide nanoparticles extend to wide-ranging areas such as catalysis, biosensing, drug delivery, diagnostics, solar cell optoelectronics, cell labeling and imaging, photonic bandgap materials,surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, etc owing to their unique properties as compared to bulk materials.

Lead sulfide nanoparticles possess unique electrical and optical properties. They exhibit quantum confinement below a certain size threshold called, quantum size effect—that allows their optical and electrical properties to be precisely tuned with size. They are optically active in the near-infrared (NIR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. They have a variety of photonic applications, in single and multi-junction solar cells.