CdSeS/ZnS alloyed nanocrystal lifetime and blinking studies under electrochemical control

Alloyed CdSeS nanocrystals allow tuning between the CdSe and CdS band edges while remaining relatively small. The CdSeS cores also lead to a reduced electron confinement energy and a slower biexciton decay rate compared to CdSe cores of similar sizes. A ZnS shell synthesis procedure allows stable CdSeS/ZnS colloidal quantum dots (QDs) suitable for single dot imaging. These are compared to CdSe/ZnS of similar core size. The blinking off-exponents of the CdSeS/ZnS dots in air and on a glass substrate were slightly larger. Using electrochemistry with ensemble and single dot measurements, the trion lifetime of CdSeS/ZnS dot is resolved to be ~0.75 ns, while it is about 0.15 ns for CdSe/ZnS. In addition, the blinking behavior of single CdSeS/ZnS QDs is largely suppressed when in the trion state.