Tunable Transmittance of Near-infrared and Visible Light in Reconstructed Nanocrystal-in-Glass Composite Films

The bonding arrangement in amorphous materials plays a dominant role in determining their electrochemical, optical and transport properties. However, it remains a challenge to manipulate amorphous structures in a controlled manner. Recently, scientists at the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) developed synthetic protocols for incorporating well-defined nanocrystals into amorphous materials [1,2]. This “nanocrystal-in-glass” approach not only allows combining two functional components in one material, but it could also provide a handle, by virtue of the interfacial covalent bond, for manipulating the glass structure and deliberately changing its properties.