Abstract
We report on the temperature dependence of the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum and of the PL relaxation dynamics for colloidal core/shell quantum dots (QDs) embedded in an inert polystyrene matrix. We demonstrate that the confinement energy in the QDs is independent of the temperature. The coupling with both acoustic and optical phonons is also studied. Quantum confinement results in a strong increase of the exciton–acoustic-phonon coupling constant, up to , and in a reduced exciton–longitudinal-optical (LO)-phonon coupling constant, down to , with respect to bulk CdSe. In addition, we demonstrate that the main nonradiative process that limits the quantum efficiency of the QD at room temperature is the thermal escape from the dot assisted by scattering with four LO phonons. Thermally activated trapping in surface states is also observed at low temperature, with an activation energy of about .
- Received 17 December 2004
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.71.235409
©2005 American Physical Society