Progress Article abstract
Nature Physics 4, 519 - 522 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nphys1001
Subject Categories: Optical physics | Atomic and molecular physics
Universal emission intermittency in quantum dots, nanorods and nanowires
Pavel Frantsuzov1, Masaru Kuno2, Boldizsár Jankó1,4 & Rudolph A. Marcus3
Abstract
Virtually all known fluorophores exhibit mysterious episodes of emission intermittency. A remarkable feature of the phenomenon is a power-law distribution of on- and off-times observed in colloidal semiconductor quantum dots, nanorods, nanowires and some organic dyes. For nanoparticles, the resulting power law extends over an extraordinarily wide dynamic range: nine orders of magnitude in probability density and five to six orders of magnitude in time. Exponents hover about the ubiquitous value of -3/2. Dark states routinely last for tens of seconds—practically forever on quantum mechanical timescales. Despite such infinite states of darkness, the dots miraculously recover and start emitting again. Although the underlying mechanism responsible for this phenomenon remains a mystery and many questions persist, we argue that substantial theoretical progress has been made.
- Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA
- Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
- Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA
Correspondence to: Boldizsár Jankó1,4 e-mail: bjanko@nd.edu
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