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Surface spin magnetism controls the polarized exciton emission from CdSe nanoplatelets

Nature Nanotechnology volume 15, pages 277–282 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The surface of nominally diamagnetic colloidal CdSe nanoplatelets can demonstrate paramagnetic behaviour owing to the uncompensated spins of dangling bonds, as we reveal here by optical spectroscopy in high magnetic fields up to 15 T using the exciton spin as a probe of the surface magnetism. The strongly nonlinear magnetic field dependence of the circular polarization of the exciton emission is determined by the magnetization of the dangling-bond spins (DBSs), the exciton spin polarization as well as the spin-dependent recombination of dark excitons. The sign of the exciton–DBS exchange interaction depends on the nanoplatelet growth conditions.

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Fig. 1: PL spectra and recombination dynamics.
Fig. 2: Exciton polarization in Sample 1.
Fig. 3: Exciton and trion polarization in different samples.
Fig. 4: Concept and theory.

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Data availability

The data on which the plots within this paper are based and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon justified request.

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Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Al. L. Efros and Yu. G. Kusrayev for fruitful discussions. We acknowledge the financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft through the International Collaborative Research Centre TRR160 (Project B1), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 19-52-12064 NNIO-a). A.V.R. acknowledges partial support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant no. 17-02-01063). A.A.G. acknowledges support of the Grants Council of the President of the Russian Federation. A.P. and I.M. acknowledge funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 714876 PHOCONA).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Elena V. Shornikova, Aleksandr A. Golovatenko.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Experimentelle Physik 2, Technische Universität Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany

    Elena V. Shornikova, Dmitri R. Yakovlev, Gang Qiang & Manfred Bayer

  2. Ioffe Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    Aleksandr A. Golovatenko, Dmitri R. Yakovlev, Anna V. Rodina & Manfred Bayer

  3. Institut d’Electronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie, CNRS, Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France

    Louis Biadala

  4. Laboratoire de Physique et d’Etude des Matériaux, ESPCI, CNRS, Paris, France

    Alexis Kuntzmann, Michel Nasilowski & Benoit Dubertret

  5. Department of Chemistry, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Anatolii Polovitsyn & Iwan Moreels

  6. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy

    Anatolii Polovitsyn & Iwan Moreels

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  1. Elena V. Shornikova
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Contributions

E.V.S., L.B. and G.Q. performed the measurements under the guidance of D.R.Y. and M.B. A.A.G. performed theoretical modelling of the experimental data under the guidance of A.V.R. E.V.S., A.A.G., A.V.R. and D.R.Y. analysed and interpreted the data. A.K. and M.N. synthesized the nanocrystals (Samples 1, 3 and 4) under the guidance of B.D., and A.P. synthesized nanocrystals (Samples 2 and 5) under the guidance of I.M. E.V.S., A.A.G., A.V.R. and D.R.Y. wrote the manuscript with the assistance of all other co-authors.

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Correspondence to Elena V. Shornikova, Dmitri R. Yakovlev or Anna V. Rodina.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Nanotechnology thanks Mikhail Artemyev and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–12, Sections 1–5 (additional experimental results, additional theory) and Table 1.

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Shornikova, E.V., Golovatenko, A.A., Yakovlev, D.R. et al. Surface spin magnetism controls the polarized exciton emission from CdSe nanoplatelets. Nat. Nanotechnol. 15, 277–282 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-019-0631-7

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