The manipulation and tailoring of the structure and properties of semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) is significant particularly for the design and fabrication of future nanodevices. Here, a novel domain-confined growth strategy is reported for controllable fabrication of individual monocrystal hollow NCs (h-NCs) in situ inside a transmission electron microscope, which enables the atomic scale monitoring of the entire reaction. During the process, the preformed carbon shells serve as nanoreaction cells for the formation of CdSeS h-NCs. Electron beam (e-beam) irradiation is demonstrated to be the key activation factor for the solid-to-hollow shape transformation. The formation of CdSeS hollow NCs is also found to be sensitive to the volume ratio of the CdSe/CdS NCs to the carbon shell and only those CdSe/CdS NCs with a volume ratio in the range 0.2-0.8 are successfully converted into hollow NCs. The method paves the way to potentially use an e-beam for the in situ tailoring of individual semiconductor NCs targeted toward future nanodevice applications.
Keywords: domain‐confined growth; electron beam; hollow nanocrystals; partially sublimated nanocrystals; single‐particle manipulation.