Fluorescence intermittency in blinking quantum dots: renewal or slow modulation?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the blinking behavior of quantum dots, demonstrating that renewal processes better explain their intermittency than slow modulation, and explores the possibility of an intermediate model.

Contribution

It provides evidence favoring renewal models over slow modulation for quantum dot blinking and discusses potential intermediate dynamics.

Findings

Renewal process fits aging experiment data

Slow modulation approach does not fit the data

Exploration of intermediate models possible

Abstract

We study time series produced by the blinking quantum dots, by means of an aging experiment, and we examine the results of this experiment in the light of two distinct approaches to complexity, renewal and slow modulation. We find that the renewal approach fits the result of the aging experiment, while the slow modulation perspective does not. We make also an attempt at establishing the existence of an intermediate condition.