Anionic precursors may also include elements, covalent compounds, or ionic compounds, which are used as one or more electronegative elements in the resulting nanocrystals. These definitions expect to be able to prepare ternary compounds, quaternary compounds and even more complex species using the methods disclosed in the present invention, in which case more than one cationic precursor and/or more than one anion precursor can be used. When two or more cationic elements are used during a given monolayer growth, if the other part of the nanocrystalline contains only a single cationic, the resulting nanocrystals have a cationic alloy at the specified single layer. The same method can be used to prepare nanocrystals with anionic alloys.
The above method is applicable to the core/shell nanocrystals prepared using a series of cationic precursor compounds of core and shell materials, for example, precursors of Group II metals (eg, Zn, Cd or Hg), precursors of Group III metals (eg, Al, Ga or In), a precursor of a Group IV metal (for example, Ge, Sn or Pb), or a transition metal (for example, Ti, Zr, Hf, V, Nb, Ta, Cr, Mo, W, Mn, Tc), Re, Fe, Ru, Os, Co, Rh, Ir, Ni, Pd, Pt, Cu, Ag, Au, etc.).