Short-time power-law blinking statistics of single quantum dots and a test of the diffusion-controlled electron transfer model.

In this work we analyzed the blinking statistics data of single CdSe/ZnS quantum dots at very short times to test some predictions of the diffusion-controlled electron transfer (DCET) model. Using autocorrelation function (ACF) approach we could extract the exponent of the inverse power-law blinking statistics down to 1 micros. Such an approach also minimizes human subjectivity in choosing a bin time and an on-off threshold. We showed that the observed stretched exponential decay in the ACF and its relationship to the blinking statistics are consistent with the DCET model, and we set an upper bound for the characteristic time constant t(c).