Conduction Band Fine Structure in Colloidal HgTe Quantum Dots

HgTe colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are of interest because quantum confinement of semimetallic bulk HgTe allows one to synthetically control the bandgap throughout the infrared. Here, we synthesize highly monodisperse HgTe QDs and tune their doping both chemically and electrochemically. The monodispersity of the QDs was evaluated using small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and suggests a diameter distribution of ∼10% across multiple batches of different sizes. Electron-doped HgTe QDs display an intraband absorbance and bleaching of the first two excitonic features. We see splitting of the intraband peaks corresponding to electronic transitions from the occupied 1S e state to a series of nondegenerate 1P e states. Spectroelectrochemical studies reveal that the degree of splitting and relative intensity of the intraband features remain constant across doping levels up to two electrons per QD. Theoretical modeling suggests that the splitting of the 1P e level arises from spin-orbit coupling and reduced QD symmetry. The fine structure of the intraband transitions is observed in the ensemble studies due to the size uniformity of the as-synthesized QDs and strong spin-orbit coupling inherent to HgTe.