Plasmon-enhanced Förster energy transfer between semiconductor quantum dots: multipole effects

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated plasmon-assisted energy transfer (ET) between CdSe semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) self-assembled in a monolayer by using time-resolved micro-photoluminescence (PL) technique. The enhancements of PL intensity and ET efficiency were manipulated by adjusting thickness (Delta) of SiO(2) coating on large Ag nanoparticles. The PL enhancement factor of the acceptor QDs and the PL intensity ratio of acceptor-to-donor reached their maxima approximately 47 and approximately 14 when Delta = 7 nm, the corresponding ET efficiency reached 86%. We also presented theoretical analysis based on the rate equation. The theoretical calculations agreed with experimental data and revealed interesting physics of multipole effect, and metal nanoparticle induced quench effect and plasmon-enhanced Förster ET.

Numerical studies of the interaction of an atomic sample with the electromagnetic field in two dimensions

“…Their studies have lead to many applications such as coherent EM energy transport in space [16], surfaceenhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) [17] and tip-enhanced microscopy [18]. Recent attention has focused on optical control scenarios, ranging from coupled exciton-plasmon dynamics in semiconductor nanodots [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and in molecular aggregates [28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], where metal NPs affect excitation energy transfer between molecules, to optical trapping of single atoms or molecules [37][38][39][40]. Such applications are facilitated by the possibility to control the geometry of nanomaterials (NP size, their relative arrangement, etc.)…”

Quantum Dot Nanoarrays: Self‐Assembly With Single‐Particle Control and Resolution

“…In this work we demonstrate QD self‐assembly from solution on lithographically defined, biochemically functionalized metal nanopatterns. This method yields control at the single dot level to achieve predominantly single particle structures consisting of a CdSe/ZnS core/shell QD coupled to a metal nanoparticle (MNP) 47–49. Our approach further yields extremely low defect density (necessary for potential high sensitivity single emitter observations), and enables parallel investigations at the single particle level.…”

Luminescence Emission Mediated by Surface Plasmon in the Semiconductor Quantum Dots

“…For the CdSe/ZnS QDs coupled with the Ag nanocrystals, the luminescence decay processes are very complex, and several energy transfer models have been proposed. 12,13 An important result for the hybrid structure is that there is a considerable di®erence for the fast decay processes: its lifetime is 0.16 ns and 0.95 ns, respectively. Another noticeable result in our experiments is that the slow decay rates of the hybrid structure are similar with the pure QDs luminescence decay rates as shown in Table 1.…”