Controllable growth of semiconductor heterostructures mediated by bifunctional Ag2S nanocrystals as catalyst or source-host.

We demonstrate that Ag(2)S nanocrystals are the bifunctional mediator for controllable growth of semiconductor heterostructures including more complicated multisegments heterostructures in solution-phase, which is a new type of nanomediator and quite different from the metal nanoparticle catalyst. The intrinsic high Ag(+) ion mobility makes Ag(2)S nanocrystals not only exhibit excellent catalytic function for growth of metal sulfide heterostructures but also act as a source-host for growth of ternary semiconductor heterostructures, for example, Ag(2)S-AgInS(2). The semiconductors grow epitaxially from or inward in Ag(2)S nanocrystals forming single-crystalline heterostructures. Moreover, the method developed here also can construct multisegments heterostructures, for example, Ag(2)S-CdS-ZnS, AgInS(2)-Ag(2)S-AgInS(2). The interfacial structure is still stable even if the lattice mismatch is quite large, which is a unique feature of this method.