The formation of solid thin films from colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) is often accompanied by red shifts in excitonic transitions, but the mechanisms responsible for the red shifts are under debate. We quantitatively address this issue using optical absorption spectroscopy of two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) arrays of PbSe QDs with controlled inter-QD distance, which was determined by the length of alkanedithiol linking molecules. With decreasing inter-QD distance, the first and second exciton absorption peaks show increasing red shifts. Using thin films consisting of large and isolated QDs embedded in a matrix of small QDs, we determine that a dominant contribution to the observed red shift is due to changes in polarization of the dielectric environment surrounding each QD (∼88%), while electronic or transition dipole coupling plays a lesser role. However, the observed red shifts are more than 1 order of magnitude larger than theoretical predictions based on the dielectric polarization effect for spherical QDs. We attribute this anomalously large polarization effect to deviations of the exciton wave functions from eigenfunctions of the idealized spherical quantum well model.

The previously reported [Volkov et al. (2004). Chem. Phys. Lett. 391, 170-175] exact potential and multipole moment (EP/MM) method for evaluation of intermolecular electrostatic interaction energies using the nuclei-centered pseudoatom representation of electron densities is significantly improved in terms of both speed and accuracy by replacing the numerical quadrature integration of the exact potential with a fully analytical technique. The resulting approach, incorporated in the XDPROP module of the software package XD, has been tested on several molecular systems ranging in size from water-water to dodecapeptide-dodecapeptide dimers using electron densities constructed via the University at Buffalo Aspherical Atom Databank. The improved hybrid method provides electrostatic interaction energies within the uncertainty of ≤0.2 kJ mol for all benchmark systems. The running time for a dimer of a sizable, 225-atom dodecapeptide is under 4 s on a 2012 central processing unit (2.8 GHz AMD Opteron 6348) and under 3 s on a relatively modern processor (2.8 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1505M v5).

The previously reported exact potential and multipole moment (EP/MM) method for fast and accurate evaluation of the intermolecular electrostatic interaction energies using the pseudoatom representation of the electron density [Volkov, Koritsanszky & Coppens (2004). Chem. Phys. Lett. 391, 170–175; Nguyen, Kisiel & Volkov (2018). Acta Cryst. A74, 524–536; Nguyen & Volkov (2019). Acta Cryst. A75, 448–464] is extended to the calculation of electrostatic interaction energies in molecular crystals using two newly developed implementations: (i) the Ewald summation (ES), which includes interactions up to the hexadecapolar level and the EP correction to account for short-range electron-density penetration effects, and (ii) the enhanced EP/MM-based direct summation (DS), which at sufficiently large intermolecular separations replaces the atomic multipole moment approximation to the electrostatic energy with that based on the molecular multipole moments. As in the previous study [Nguyen, Kisiel & Volkov (2018). Acta Cryst. A74, 524–536], the EP electron repulsion integral is evaluated analytically using the Löwdin α-function approach. The resulting techniques, incorporated in the XDPROP module of the software package XD2016, have been tested on several small-molecule crystal systems (benzene, L-dopa, paracetamol, amino acids etc.) and the crystal structure of a 181-atom decapeptide molecule (Z = 4) using electron densities constructed via the University at Buffalo Aspherical Pseudoatom Databank [Volkov, Li, Koritsanszky & Coppens (2004). J. Phys. Chem. A, 108, 4283–4300]. Using a 2015 2.8 GHz Intel Xeon E3-1505M v5 computer processor, a 64-bit implementation of the Löwdin α-function and one of the higher optimization levels in the GNU Fortran compiler, the ES method evaluates the electrostatic interaction energy with a numerical precision of at least 10−5 kJ mol−1 in under 6 s for any of the tested small-molecule crystal structures, and in 48.5 s for the decapeptide structure. The DS approach is competitive in terms of precision and speed with the ES technique only for crystal structures of small molecules that do not carry a large molecular dipole moment. The electron-density penetration effects, correctly accounted for by the two described methods, contribute 28–64% to the total electrostatic interaction energy in the examined systems, and thus cannot be neglected.

The Fourier transform method for analytical determination of the two-center Coulomb integrals needed for evaluation of the electrostatic interaction energies between pseudoatom-based charge distributions is presented, and its Fortran-based implementation using the 128-bit floating-point arithmetic in the XDPROP module of the XD software is described. In combination with mathematical libraries included in the Lahey/Fujitsu LF64 Linux compiler, the new implementation outperforms the previously reported Lö wdin -function technique [Nguyen et al. (2018). Acta Cryst. A74, 524-536] in terms of precision of the determined individual Coulomb integrals regardless of whether the latter uses the 64-, 80-or 128-bit precision floating-point format, all the while being only marginally slower. When the Lö wdin -function or Fourier transform method is combined with a multipole moment approximation for large interatomic separations (such a hybrid scheme is called the analytical exact potential and multipole moment method, aEP/MM) the resulting electrostatic interaction energies are evaluated with a precision of 5 Â 10 À5 kJ mol À1 for the current set of benchmark systems composed of H, C, N and O atoms and ranging in size from water-water to dodecapeptide-dodecapeptide dimers. Using a 2012 4.0 GHz AMD FX-8350 computer processor, the two recommended aEP/MM implementations, the 80-bit precision Lö wdin -function and 128-bit precision Fourier transform methods, evaluate the total electrostatic interaction energy between two 225-atom monomers of the benchmark dodecapeptide molecule in 6.0 and 7.9 s, respectively, versus 3.1 s for the previously reported 64-bit Lö wdin -function approach.

The liquid-phase epitaxy of InGaAsP periodic structures is reported. A conventional horizontal sliding boat or a computer-controlled rotating crucible was used to grow two types of structures. Stacks of thin layers grown from the same melt showed high-quality x-ray diffraction profiles, which are shown to allow a precise determination of layer thickness; supersaturation was found to significantly influence layer thickness for short growth times. In superlattices such as InP/InGaAsP or InGaAsP/InGaAs, good composition and thickness reproductibility throughout the structure was verified by Auger sputtering. The presence of satellite peaks in x-ray diffraction profiles clearly proved that periodicity was well achieved in these structures. Quantum effects were observed by photoluminescence in sufficiently small wells.