Observation of Size-Dependent Thermalization in CdSe Nanocrystals Using Time-Resolved Photoluminescence Spectroscopy

Date

2011-10-20

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Hannah, Daniel C., Nicholas J. Dunn, Sandrine Ithurria, Dmitri V. Talapin, Lin X. Chen, Matthew Pelton, George C. Schatz, and Richard D. Schaller. “Observation of Size-Dependent Thermalization in CdSe Nanocrystals Using Time-Resolved Photoluminescence Spectroscopy.” Physical Review Letters 107, no. 17 (October 20, 2011): 177403. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.177403.

Rights

This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
Public Domain Mark 1.0

Subjects

Abstract

We report heat dissipation times in semiconductor nanocrystals of CdSe. Specifically, a previously unresolved, subnanosecond decay component in the low-temperature photoluminescence decay dynamics exhibits longer decay lifetimes (tens to hundreds of picoseconds) for larger nanocrystals as well as a size-independent, ∼25-meV spectral shift. We attribute the fast relaxation to transient phonon-mediated relaxation arising from nonequilibrium acoustic phonons. Following acoustic phonon dissipation, the dark exciton state recombines more slowly via LO-phonon assistance resulting in the observed spectral shift. The measured relaxation time scales agree with classical calculations of thermal diffusion, indicating that interfacial thermal conductivity does not limit thermal transport in these semiconductor nanocrystal dispersions.