Quantum confinement effect on ionic properties

[saray1360]

Hello all,

I want to know if decreasing the size of material has effects on its ionic properties? I mean, forexample, we have a system which, in chemistry point of view, has high ionicity, like AlN, ZnO and ...

Does the ionic property change if we confine the system in some directions? Also, does saturating the dangling bonds on the surface has effect on decreasing or increasing the ionic properties of such material?

Another question: can we calculate a property that shows the increase or decrease in ionic properties other than calculating the distance between the atoms?

Regards,
Sara

 

[TeethWhitener]

It’s unclear what is meant by “ionic properties,” and no example of such is given by OP. I will say that it is fairly well-established computationally (and now experimentally, thanks to some brilliant work by the Alivisatos group at Berkeley) that crystal nucleation and dissolution is dominated by interactions at defects, edges, and corners, rather than at flat faces of a crystal. So since smaller crystals will have a higher proportion of these non-bulk features, they will nuclear/dissolve at a faster rate.