Proceedings of MATSUS Fall 2024 Conference (MATSUSFall24)
Publication date: 28th August 2024
Single-photon emitters play a crucial role in many leading quantum technologies. The search for an ideal single-photon emitter however is still ongoing. A variety of materials have been tested each with their own limitations. Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) offer great potential as single-photon emitters. However, multi-excitons can pose a problem even at low excitation fluences. Recently, Galland et al. described a new antibunching mechanism in dot–in–bulk (DiB) CdSe/CdS QDs — dynamic Coulomb blockade — as a single hole in the core was sufficient to suppress the capture of a second.1 Here, we tune and quantify this effect by exciting either the core (560nm) or the core and shell simultaneously (405 nm). Core absorption follows Poisson statistics, while shell absorption with the subsequent charge transfer to the core is prone to dynamic hole blockade. This leads to an improved single-photon purity for the red-emitting core as additional holes will reside and thus recombine in the green-emitting shell. We quantify this antibunching process with time corelated single-photon counting (TCSPC) measurements, taking a step towards understanding and optimizing single-photon emitting QDs.