American Chemical Society, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 1(136), p. 179-187, 2013
DOI: 10.1021/ja4078528
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Here we report the first series of phase-pure zinc-blende CdSe/CdS core/shell quantum dots (QDs) with reproducibly controlled shell thickness (4–16 monolayers), which are nonblinking (≥95% ‘on’ time) in single-exciton regime for the entire series. These unique QDs possess well-controlled yet simple excited-state decay dynamics at both single-dot and ensemble levels, extremely small nonblinking volume threshold, if any, and unique ‘on’ and ‘off’ probability statistics. The outstanding optical properties of the QDs at the single-dot level were found to be correlated well with their ensemble properties. These small and bright nonblinking QDs offer promising technical application prospect in both single-dot and ensemble levels. The consistent and reproducible experimental results shed new light on the mechanisms of blinking of QDs.