Spectral diffusion of single semiconductor nanocrystals: the influence of the dielectric environment

TL;DR

This study investigates how the dielectric environment affects spectral diffusion in single CdSe/CdS/ZnS nanocrystals, revealing that spectral diffusion extent is largely environment-independent and uncovering unexpected correlations between line width and emission energy.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the dielectric environment has minimal impact on spectral diffusion in these nanocrystals and reports novel correlations between spectral properties.

Findings

Spectral diffusion extent is almost independent of dielectric environment.

Correlation between line width and emission energy was observed.

Spectral diffusion correlates with blinking events.

Abstract

We have explored the influence of different matrices on the emission line shape of individual homogeneously coated CdSe/CdS/ZnS nanocrystals. The results obtained corroborate previous observations of a correlation between blinking events and spectral diffusion but in addition we have found that the extent of spectral diffusion is almost independent of the dielectric environment of the NC. Additionally, we report the observation of a correlation between the line width and emission energy which is not expected to occur in the spherical - symmetric NCs employed in this work. The implications of these results are discussed.