Submitted To:

Dr. Muhammad Akram Raza

Submitted By:
Rehman Rasheed
Ph.D-SSP06F21
Session 2021-26
Assignment Topic:
“Quantum Confinement Effect”

Centre of Excellence in Solid State

Physics.
University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam
Campus, Lahore
What is Quantum Confinement Effect? Discuss its
effect on optical, magnetic and electronic properties
of Nano materials?
Quantum Confinement Effect:
Quantum confinement effects describe electrons in terms of energy levels,
potential wells, valence bands, conduction bands, and electron energy band gaps.
The quantum confinement effect is observed when the size of the particle is too
small to be comparable to the wavelength of the electron. Obviously, the
confinement of an electron and hole in Nano crystals significantly depends on the
material properties.
The term “quantum confinement” mainly deals with energy of confined electrons
(electrons or electron hole). The energy levels of electrons will not remain
Continuous as in the case of bulk materials compared to the Nano crystals.
Moreover, obtaining the confined electron wave functions, they become a discrete
set of energy levels as shown in Figure 1. Such kinds of effects appear when the
dimensions of the potential approach near to de Broglie wavelength of electrons
resulting in the changes or discrete levels of energy. The effects are defined as
quantum confinement and consequently, for Nano crystals, are often called quantum
dots (QDs). Furthermore, this quantum dot effect has an influence in the
nanomaterial properties such as electrical, optical, as well as mechanical behavior of
the material. It is due to its peculiar nature why Nano materials possess higher
energy electrons than the bulk materials.
Depending on the QD size, confined electrons have higher energy than the electrons
in bulk materials. The semiconductor nanomaterial exhibit fascinating properties
when reducing their dimensionality from 2D to 1D or 1D to 0D. Perhaps, the
quantum confinement effect occurs when reducing the size and shape of
nanomaterial’s less than 100–10 nm or even lesser. These changes due to the
discrete set of electron energy levels lead to size confinement.
Figure 1: Energy band structures in atom, bulk semiconductor and quantum
nanostructure.

Impact of Quantum Confinement on optical, magnetic

and electronic properties of Nanomaterials:
Materials with grain size in the range of nanoscale show higher mechanical
strength than coarse-grained materials. Two main characterizing parameters
presenting the degree of dominance of surface effects in materials are
coordination number and dispersion. Due to high surface effects, nanoparticles
are effective catalytic agents. Melting points of these particles are lower as
compare to those of the bulk material, and phase transitions are indistinctly
defined. The quantum size effect in nanomaterials depends on the dimension of
the nanomaterial as compared to exciton Bohr radius. Due to quantum
confinement, the band gap of a semiconductor nanocrystal is wider than bulk
semiconductor. Due to Quantum Confinement effect light of different
wavelengths emits from these quantum dots. In metals, interaction of light with
surface leads to resonance oscillations at particular frequencies and create
different color effects. Notable magnetic properties of Nanomaterials exhibit
magnetic properties including the display of super paramagnetic behavior, the
exhibition of magnetism in materials that are supposed to be nonmagnetic, and
the giant magnetoresistance effect.
Wan at el., (2021) prepared CNPs and calculated refractive index as a function of
particle size and wavelength of flame CNPs with the help of the Kramers–Krönig
relations and optical absorption model. They observed that particles with
wavelengths > ∼15 nm showed excellent matching between literature and
computed values of complex refractive index in ultra violet and visible range.
When the wavelengths are greater than 700 nm imaginary part is much lesser than
literature values over the whole range of particle sizes considered. They conclude
that imaginary component strongly dependent on particle size.
Utilizing chemical precipitation technique CdS and Gd-doped CdS nanoparticles
were synthesized by Thambidurai at el., (2013). Average particle size of
nanoparticles (3.6 to 4.5 nm) and hexagonal structure were confirmed by X-ray
diffraction patterns. The presence of Gd, Cd and S in prepared specimens were
confirmed by compositional analysis. It was observed that Gd-doped cadmium
sulphate NPs revealed red shift as compared to simple CdS nanoparticles.
Increased band gap of CdS and Gd-doped CdS nanoparticles than bulk CdS clearly
due to effect quantum confinement.
Hui-Xiong Deng studied the impact of Quantum Confinement on electronic
properties of SnO2 Quantum Wires and Dots. The band gaps for different size SnO2
Quantum dots and wires were calculated by using DFT. It was observed that band
gap increases between QWs and bulk with decrease in diameter and approximately
0.609 eV increase in the ratio of band gap between SnO2 QWs and QDs was
noticed.
Shama Rehman studied the impact of size Optical and magnetic properties of CuO
nanoparticles prepared by a chemical route. With the help of spectroscopy a red
shift in indirect band gap from 1.23 to 1 eV was noticed by decreasing size from 29
to 11 nm due to the presence of defect states in band gap. Furthermore, a clear blue
shift is noticed in the direct band gap of these nanoparticles due to the quantum
confinement effects. Air-annealed samples exhibit a paramagnetic behavior
whereas particles annealed in a decreasing atmosphere show a weak ferromagnetic
component at room temperature. For both types, the paramagnetic and
ferromagnetic moments rise with decreasing size respectively. The important of
oxygen vacancies is understood to relate to the creation of free carriers mediating
ferromagnetism between Cu spins. AC susceptibility measurements show both the
antiferromagnetic transitions of CuO including the one at 231 K which is
associated with the onset of the spiral antiferromagnetic phase transition.

Here figure 2 represent quantum confinement effect on nanomaterials. It shows

that with decrease in size of particle band gap increases and optical properties of
NPs changes i.e. material emit light of different wavelengths.

Figure 2: Blue shift in wavelength (nm) with decreasing size.

Lin yanhong synthesized the ZnO QDs (3nm in size) and the ZnO nano rods (80
nm in length with 14 nm width) by sol-gel method. They were characterized by
XRD, TEM, UV-spectroscopy and PL spectroscopy. It was noticed that surface
photovoltage of ZnO nanoparticles are different because of their different sizes as a
result of Quantum Confinement effect. Furthermore, ZnO quantum dot shows
various quantum confinement properties such as high symmetry, band gap and
SPV response under negative and positive electric field.
The Quantum Confinement effect was also pointed out in Ge nanocrystals with
tunneling spectroscopy to explore the electronic structure of isolated NCs of Ge as
a function of size of materials. It was found that the band gap of single
nanoparticle increases as their size decreases and band gap of 1 eV is obtained with
Ge nanocrystal having 3nm diameter.
The impact of Quantum Confinement on Ga1-xMnxAs was also investigated with
the help of density functional and tight binding methods. It was observed that
magnetically doped III-V nanoparticles will offer a medium for investigating the
electronic structure of dilute magnetic semiconductor with conserving the magnetic
properties of material.
Quantum confinement effect can govern the behavior of matter at the nanoscale
predominantly at the range of 10 nm and affect the optical, magnetic and electrical
behavior of materials. It can enhance these properties and will help the researcher
to develop such a nano devices which are more efficient and smaller in size.