Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.115, No.16, 4076-4081, 2011
Single-Nanocrystal Spectroscopy of White-Light-Emitting CdSe Nanocrystals
We report the observation of broad-spectrum fluorescence from single CdSe nanocrystals. Individual semiconductor nanocrystals typically have a narrower emission spectrum than that of an ensemble. However, our experiments show that the ensemble white-light emission observed in ultrasmall CdSe nanocrystals is the result of many single CdSe nanocrystals, each emitting over the entire visible spectrum. These results indicate that each white-light-emitting CdSe nanocrystal contains all the trap states that give rise to the observed white-light emission.