Anisotropic emission from multilayered plasmon resonator nanocomposites of isotropic semiconductor quantum dots

ACS Nano. 2011 Feb 22;5(2):1328-34. doi: 10.1021/nn1030324. Epub 2011 Jan 19.

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a nanocomposite localized surface plasmon resonator embedded into an artificial three-dimensional construction. Colloidal semiconductor quantum dots are assembled between layers of metal nanoparticles to create a highly strong plasmon-exciton interaction in the plasmonic cavity. In such a multilayered plasmonic resonator architecture of isotropic CdTe quantum dots, we observed polarized light emission of 80% in the vertical polarization with an enhancement factor of 4.4, resulting in a steady-state anisotropy value of 0.26 and reaching the highest quantum efficiency level of 30% ever reported for such CdTe quantum dot solids. Our electromagnetic simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental characterization data showing a significant emission enhancement in the vertical polarization, for which their fluorescence decay lifetimes are substantially shortened by consecutive replication of our unit cell architecture design. Such strongly plasmon-exciton coupling nanocomposites hold great promise for future exploitation and development of quantum dot plasmonic biophotonics and quantum dot plasmonic optoelectronics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Absorption
  • Anisotropy
  • Electricity
  • Kinetics
  • Luminescent Measurements
  • Nanocomposites / chemistry*
  • Quantum Dots*
  • Semiconductors*