Surface Charge Control of Quantum Dot Blinking

Steven D. Quinn; Aidan Rafferty; Emma Dick; Michael J Morten; Fraser J. Kettles; Chloe Knox; Mark Murrie; Steven W. Magennis

doi:10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b07779

Surface Charge Control of Quantum Dot Blinking

Steven D. Quinn, Aidan Rafferty, Emma Dick, Michael J Morten, Fraser J. Kettles, Chloe Knox, Mark Murrie^*, Steven W. Magennis

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

A characteristic property of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) is their emission intermittency. Although a unifying theory of QD photoprocesses remains elusive, the importance of charged states is clear. We now report a new approach to directly study the role of surface charge on QD emission by adding metal ions to individual, core-only QDs immobilized in aqueous solution in an agarose gel. The CdTe QDs show very stable emission in the absence of metal ions but a dramatic and reversible increase in blinking due to the presence of trivalent metal ions. Our results support a charge-separation model, in which the major blinking pathway is the surface trapping of electrons; transiently bound metal ions close to the QD surface enhance this process.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	19487-19491
Number of pages	5
Journal	Journal of Physical Chemistry C
Volume	120
Issue number	34
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b07779
Publication status	Published - 1 Sept 2016

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AU - Quinn, Steven D.

AU - Rafferty, Aidan

AU - Dick, Emma

AU - Morten, Michael J

AU - Kettles, Fraser J.

AU - Knox, Chloe

AU - Murrie, Mark

AU - Magennis, Steven W.

PY - 2016/9/1

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N2 - A characteristic property of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) is their emission intermittency. Although a unifying theory of QD photoprocesses remains elusive, the importance of charged states is clear. We now report a new approach to directly study the role of surface charge on QD emission by adding metal ions to individual, core-only QDs immobilized in aqueous solution in an agarose gel. The CdTe QDs show very stable emission in the absence of metal ions but a dramatic and reversible increase in blinking due to the presence of trivalent metal ions. Our results support a charge-separation model, in which the major blinking pathway is the surface trapping of electrons; transiently bound metal ions close to the QD surface enhance this process.

AB - A characteristic property of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) is their emission intermittency. Although a unifying theory of QD photoprocesses remains elusive, the importance of charged states is clear. We now report a new approach to directly study the role of surface charge on QD emission by adding metal ions to individual, core-only QDs immobilized in aqueous solution in an agarose gel. The CdTe QDs show very stable emission in the absence of metal ions but a dramatic and reversible increase in blinking due to the presence of trivalent metal ions. Our results support a charge-separation model, in which the major blinking pathway is the surface trapping of electrons; transiently bound metal ions close to the QD surface enhance this process.

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Surface Charge Control of Quantum Dot Blinking

Abstract

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