Tailored growth of single-crystalline InP tetrapods

Despite the technological importance of colloidal covalent III-V nanocrystals with unique optoelectronic properties, their synthetic process still has challenges originating from the complex energy landscape of the reaction. Here, we present InP tetrapod nanocrystals as a crystalline late intermediate in the synthetic pathway that warrants controlled growth. We isolate tetrapod intermediate species with well-defined surfaces of (110) and ( $$\bar{1}\bar{1}\bar{1}$$ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ ) via the suppression of further growth. An additional precursor supply at low temperature induces $$[\bar{1}\bar{1}\bar{1}]$$ [ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ 1 ¯ ] -specific growth, whereas the [110]-directional growth occurs over the activation barrier of 65.7 kJ/mol at a higher temperature, thus finalizes into the (111)-faceted tetrahedron nanocrystals. We address the use of late intermediates with well-defined facets at the sub-10 nm scale for the tailored growth of covalent III-V nanocrystals and highlight the potential for the directed approach of nanocrystal synthesis.