| The field of 13-15 main group chemistry has proven a fertile ground for research in recent years. Many new compounds containing bonds between Group 13 elements (B, Al, Ga, In) and Group 15 pnicogens (N, P, As, Sb) have been isolated and characterized. Several of these compounds have been synthesized as single-source precursors to 13-15 compound semiconductors and materials. By thermolysis or controlled chemical decomposition of these compounds, the substituents on the 13 and 15 centers can be removed, yielding the electronic material with less safety hazards and more stoichiometric control than observed for organometallic chemical vapor deposition (OMCVD), a method commonly used to synthesize 13-15 materials. Some of these materials have been found to have particle sizes in the nanometer size range, which results in the exhibition of quantum confinement of electrons in these "nanocrystalline" particles. These "quantum dots" have been observed to have different electronic properties than the bulk material, which can be useful in specialized electronic applications such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.; Dehalosilylation and lithium halide elimination have been used in recent years in our laboratories to synthesize such potential single-source precursors to 13-15 materials as well as the materials themselves. The work presented herein is an extension of these techniques to the boron-Group 15 (P, As, Sb) systems, as well as ternary 13-15 systems and a further investigation into the utility of dehalosilylation for producing nanocrystalline InAs and InP. Potential single-source 13-15 precursors obtained from these reactions were thermolyzed in order to determine their utility towards producing their respective 13-15 materials. When 13-15 electronic materials were obtained from these thermolyses (InAs, InP, ternaries), characterization techniques were employed to determine their crystallinity and particle size, in order to determine if these particles would be expected to exhibit quantum confinement behavior. |
