In-situ spectroscopic investigations on colloidal Transition Metal Nitrides (TMT)

Transition metal nitrides (TMNs) are an interstitial class of materials in which nitrogen atoms are integrated into the interstitial sites of the parent metals. TMNs are simultaneously dominated by ionic, covalent, and metallic bonding in which the M-N bonding leads to expansion of the parent metal lattice and construction of the metal d-band. This deficiency in the d-band impacts higher density of states (DOS) near the Fermi level grant noble metal-like behavior. Owing to their unique physicochemical properties, TMN nanoparticles can be widely utilized in several applications such as, optoelectronics, solar cells, heterogeneous catalysts, electrocatalysis. To fully exploit the potential of the nanoparticles, the synthesis of nanoparticles at ultrasmall size is required. Thus, we focus on the synthesis of colloidal ultrasmall TMNs at elevated temperatures by one-pot synthetic routes.

The motivation of the project is not only to synthesize TMN/TTMN nanoparticles, but also to understand the reaction dynamics of the precursor transformation into the final product under reaction conditions. In this framework, I study the nucleation and growth of TMN nanoparticles especially focusing on the changes in the electronic states and structure with photon-in (XAS) photon-out (XES) spectroscopy using high brilliance light sources.

Contact for this project: Dr. Jagadesh Kopula Kesavan