Au-assisted growth of anisotropic and epitaxial cdse colloidal nanocrystals via in situ dismantling of quantum dots

Metallic nanocrystals have been revealed in the past years as valuable materials for the catalytic growth of semiconductor nanowires. Yet, only low melting point metals like Bi have been reported to successfully assist the growth of elongated CdX (X = S, Se, Te) systems in solution, and the possibility to use plasmonic noble metals has become a challenging task. In this work we show that the growth of anisotropic CdSe nanostructures in solution can also be efficiently catalyzed by colloidal Au nanoparticles, following a preferential crystallographic alignment between the metallic and semiconductor domains. Noteworthy, we report the heterodox use of semiconductor quantum dots as a homogeneous and tunable source of reactive monomer species to the solution. The mechanistic studies reveal that the in situ delivery of these cadmium and chalcogen monomer species and the formation of AuxCdy alloy seeds are both key factors for the epitaxial growth of elongated CdSe domains. The implementation of this method suggests an alternative synthetic approach for the assembly of different semiconductor domains into more complex heterostructures.