Recent progress in the fields of tuning the band gap of quantum dots

Band gap, which can be tuned by changing the size of quantum dots (QDs) based on the quantum confinement effect, plays a fundamental role in electrical and optical properties of QDs. However, the tuning of the band gap by changing the size results in a series of intrinsic problems, such as the instability of the extremely small QDs, negative combination with biomolecules because of the large size of QDs, etc. Recently, several new methods have been developed to further study and improve the tuning of the band gap. In this paper, we summarized the recent progress in the fields of tuning the band gap of QDs, including alloyed QDs, core-shell QDs and doped QDs. The review has also prospected the development trend of tuning the band gap as well as their applications.