We demonstrated that by properly coupling to silver nanoprisms, single CdSe/ZnS semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) exhibited suppressed blinking behavior, an enhanced fluorescence intensity ( approximately 2.5 fold), increased radiative decay rates ( approximately 12.5 fold), and antibunching single-photon emission. All these modifications significantly promote the overall performance of the prop...

Semiconductor nanocrystals, also called quantum dots (QDs), are fluorescent inorganic particles with typical diameters ranging from 1 to 10 nm. Due to their quantum confinement, QDs show unique and fascinating optical properties that are advantageous in the fields of photovoltaic devices, light-emitting diodes, biological imaging, biodiagnostics,... (Costa-Fernandez et al., 2006; Lim et al. 200...

We demonstrate a bilayer photovoltaic device consisting of a heterojunction between colloidal cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots (QDs) and a wide band gap organic hole-transporting thin film of N,N'-diphenyl-N,N'-bis(3-methylphenyl)[1,1'-biphenyl]-4,4'-diamine (TPD) molecules. The active light-absorbing film of QDs is nondestructively printed onto TPD using microcontact stamping. Indium-tin-o...

This work describes noncontact, local temperature measurements using wavelength shifts of CdSe quantum dots (QDs). Individual QDs are demonstrated to be capable of sensing temperature variations and reporting temperature changes remotely through optical readout. Temperature profiles of a microheater under different input voltages are evaluated based on the spectral shift of QDs on the heater, a...

With an appropriate high anneal temperature under H2 atmosphere, GaN quantum dots (QDs) have been fabricated via GaN thermal decomposition in metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). Based on the characterization of atomic force microscopy (AFM), the obtained GaN QDs show good size distribution and have a low density of 2.4 × 10(8) cm(-2). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis...

Second near-infrared (NIR-II) emitting Ag2S quantum dots (QDs) with high stability and biocompatibility were synthesized and developed toward an ideal nanoprobe. This study reports a facile synthesis of NIR-II Ag2S QDs on the basis of cation exchange between visible-emitting CdS QDs and Ag(+) ions in aqueous solution. Experimental data testified that the cation exchange was quick and complete a...

A new strategy for facile preparation of highly luminescent CdTe quantum dots (QDs) within amine-terminated hyperbranched poly(amidoamine)s (HPAMAM) was proposed in this paper. CdTe precursors were first prepared by adding NaHTe to aqueous Cd2+ chelated by 3-mercaptopropionic sodium (MPA-Na), and then HPAMAM was introduced to stabilize the CdTe precursors. After microwave irradiation, highly fl...

We report in this article the microwave synthesis of relatively monodisperse, highly crystalline CdSe quantum dots (QDs) overcoated with Cd(0.5)Zn(0.5)S/ZnS multishells. The as-prepared QDs exhibited narrow photoluminescence bandwidth as the consequence of homogeneous size distribution and uniform crystallinity, which was confirmed by transmission electron microscopy. A high photoluminescence q...

Our study described a synthesis of thiol-capped high-luminescent (quantum yield as high as 80%) CdTe quantum dots (QDs) with a facile method in aqueous phase. The fluorescence of the as-prepared CdTe QDs could be tuned from 500 nm to 650 nm. More importantly, after beta-actin conjugation, the CdTe QDs were successfully conjugated with live cells to observe their configurations, demonstrating th...

Semiconductor quantum dots share many properties with atoms such as discrete spectrum, which implies the ability to emit high purity single photons. However, they have unique features as well that are unknown to other emitters: they embody tens of thousands of atoms attaining large mesoscopic sizes, and lack the common atomic symmetries. Here we discuss two effects that are mediated by the meso...