The dephasing time of the lowest bright exciton in CdSe/ZnS wurtzite quantum dots is measured from 5 K to 170 K and compared with density dynamics within the exciton fine structure using a sensitive three-beam four-wave-mixing technique unaffected by spectral diffusion. Pure dephasing via acoustic phonons dominates the initial dynamics, followed by an exponential zero-phonon line dephasing of 109 ps at 5 K, much faster than the ~10 ns exciton radiative lifetime. The zero-phonon line dephasing is explained by phonon-assisted spin-flip from the lowest bright state to dark exciton states. This is confirmed by the temperature dependence of the exciton lifetime and by direct measurements of the bright-dark exciton relaxation. Our results give an unambiguous evidence of the physical origin of the exciton dephasing in these nanocrystals.
Polariton emission from optical cavities integrated with various luminophores has been extensively studied recently due to the wide variety of possible applications in photonics, particularly promising in terms of fabrication of low-threshold sources of coherent emission. Tuneable microcavities allow extensive investigation of the photophysical properties of matter placed inside the cavity by deterministically changing the coupling strength and controllable switching from weak to strong and ultra-strong coupling regimes. Here we demonstrate room temperature strong coupling of exciton transitions in CdSe/ZnS/CdS/ZnS colloidal quantum dots with the optical modes of a tuneable low-mode-volume microcavity. Strong coupling is evidenced by a large Rabi splitting of the photoluminescence spectra depending on the detuning of the microcavity. A coupling strength of 154 meV has been achieved. High quantum yields, excellent photostability, and scalability of fabrication of QDs paves the way to practical applications of coupled systems based on colloidal QDs in photonics, optoelectronics, and sensing.
CdSe colloidal nanoplatelets are studied by spin-flip Raman scattering in magnetic fields up to 5 T. We find pronounced Raman lines shifted from the excitation laser energy by an electron Zeeman splitting. Their polarization selection rules correspond to those expected for scattering mediated by excitons interacting with resident electrons. Surprisingly, Raman signals shifted by twice the electron Zeeman splitting are also observed. The theoretical analysis and experimental dependencies show that the mechanism responsible for the double flip involves two resident electrons interacting with a photoexcited exciton. Effects related to various orientations of the nanoplatelets in the ensemble and different orientations of the magnetic field are analyzed.
Semiconductor quantum dots are excellent candidates for ultrafast coherent manipulation of qubits by laser pulses on picosecond timescales or even faster. In inhomogeneous ensembles a macroscopic optical polarization decays rapidly due to dephasing, which, however, is reversible in photon echoes carrying complete information about the coherent ensemble dynamics. Control of the echo emission time is mandatory for applications. Here, we propose a novel concept to reach this goal. In a two-pulse photon echo sequence, we apply an additional resonant control pulse with multiple of 2pi area. Depending on its arrival time, the control slows down dephasing or rephasing of the exciton ensemble during its action. We demonstrate for self-assembled (In,Ga)As quantum dots that the photon echo emission time can be retarded or advanced by 5 ps relative to its nominal appearance time without control. This versatile protocol may be used to obtain significantly longer temporal shifts for suitably tailored control pulses.
Polaron dephasing processes are investigated in InAs/GaAs dots using far-infrared transient four wave mixing (FWM) spectroscopy. We observe an oscillatory behaviour in the FWM signal shortly (< 5 ps) after resonant excitation of the lowest energy conduction band transition due to coherent acoustic phonon generation. The subsequent single exponential decay yields long intraband dephasing times of 90 ps. We find excellent agreement between our measured and calculated FWM dynamics, and show that both real and virtual acoustic phonon processes are necessary to explain the temperature dependence of the polarization decay.
We perform photoluminescence excitation measurements on individual CdSe/ZnS nanocrystal quantum dots (NCQDs) at room temperature to study optical transition energies and broadening. The observed features in the spectra are identified and compared to calculated transition energies using an effective mass model. The observed broadening is attributed to phonon broadening, spectral diffusion and size and shape inhomogeneity. The former two contribute the broadening transitions in individual QDs while the latter contributes to the QD-to-QD variation. We find that phonon broadening is often not the dominant contribution to transition line widths, even at room temperature, and that broadening does not necessarily increase with transition energy. This may be explained by differing magnitude of spectral diffusion for different quantum-confined states.