University of
Notre Dame
College of
Science
Department of
Physics

 

SPECIAL ITS/CM Seminar

 

The mystery of blinking dots

 

Dr. Pavel Frantzusov
University of Washington

*Thursday, November 9, 2006 - 2:00 P.M., NSH 202

 

A striking puzzle was raised six years ago by the spectroscopic experiments on single colloidal quantum dots (QDs).  The emission intensity of the single QD under the continuous excitation intensively switches on and off (blinks). The distribution of the off duration times has the power law behavior with the exponent about -1.5 over 5 decades of time.  This power law is unchanged for the different temperatures, radii, laser intensities, materials, and atmospheric conditions. The on times also demonstrate the power-law distribution. The exponent of the on distribution varies for different experimental conditions from -2 to -1.5. The discovery of the molecular mechanism of such long-correlated phenomena in single nanoparticles represents a great challenge. I intend to present the history of solving this amazing puzzle which looks like something out of a detective novel.

*Note different day, time and location.

Host: ITS



All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.