Coupling of atoms is the basis of chemistry, yielding the beauty and richness of molecules. We utilize semiconductor nanocrystals as artificial atoms to form nanocrystal molecules that are structurally and electronically coupled. CdSe/CdS core/shell nanocrystals are linked to form dimers which are then fused via constrained oriented attachment. The possible nanocrystal facets in which such fusion takes place are analyzed with atomic resolution revealing the distribution of possible crystal fusion scenarios. Coherent coupling and wave-function hybridization are manifested by a redshift of the band gap, in agreement with quantum mechanical simulations. Single nanoparticle spectroscopy unravels the attributes of coupled nanocrystal dimers related to the unique combination of quantum mechanical tunneling and energy transfer mechanisms. This sets the stage for nanocrystal chemistry to yield a diverse selection of coupled nanocrystal molecules constructed from controlled core/shell nanocrystal building blocks. These are of direct relevance for numerous applications in displays, sensing, biological tagging and emerging quantum technologies.

Epitaxial growth of a protective semiconductor shell on a colloidal quantum dot (QD) core is the key strategy for achieving high fluorescence quantum efficiency and essential stability for optoelectronic applications and biotagging with emissive QDs. Herein we investigate the effect of shell growth rate on the structure and optical properties in blue-emitting ZnSe/ZnS QDs with narrow emission line width. Tuning the precursor reactivity modifies the growth mode of ZnS shells on ZnSe cores transforming from kinetic (fast) to thermodynamic (slow) growth regimes. In the thermodynamic growth regime, enhanced fluorescence quantum yields and reduced on–off blinking are achieved. This high performance is ascribed to the effective avoidance of traps at the interface between the core and the shell, which are detrimental to the emission properties. Our study points to a general strategy to obtain high-quality core/shell QDs with enhanced optical properties through controlled reactivity yielding shell growth in the thermodynamic limit.

The solvation dynamics of coumarin dyes in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)-glycerol (GLY) binary mixtures were studied across the GLY concentrations. Three coumarin dyes with widely different hydrophobicities were used for probing the entire polarity regions of this solvent mixture. Multiple anomalous concentration regions with significantly slow solvation times were detected from all three coumarin dyes. However, their precise positions were found to be probe molecule dependent. The solvation dynamics of the moderately hydrophobic dye coumarin 480 (C480) maintain a plateau region with a similar solvation time (∼550 ps) with the increase in GLY concentration until X(GLY) (the mole fraction of glycerol) reaches 0.5. This plateau region is followed by a sudden slowdown (to ∼975 ps) on the addition of more GLY to the DMSO-GLY mixture, and then this slow region persists from X(GLY)∼ 0.55 to 0.65 (peak at 0.6). On further addition of GLY (X(GLY) > 0.7), the solvation dynamics again become slower to ∼828 ps (at X(GLY)∼ 0.8) from ∼612 ps (at X(GLY)∼ 0.7). For very high GLY-content samples (X(GLY) > 0.85), the solvation times remain similar on further changes of the GLY concentrations. In contrast to C480, the most hydrophobic dye coumarin 153 (C153) shows a linear increase of solvation time in the DMSO-GLY mixture, from 102 ps (at X(GLY)∼ 0.1) to 946 ps (at X(GLY)∼ 0.9) with increase in GLY concentration, except for the concentration region, X(GLY)∼ 0.45-0.55 (peak at 0.5), where a substantial slowdown of the solvation time is observed. The highly hydrophilic probe coumarin 343 (C343) demonstrates multiple concentration regions (X(GLY)∼ 0.05-0.10, 0.25-0.35 and 0.55-0.65) where the solvation dynamics are significantly retarded. The presence of probe dependent anomalies in the DMSO-GLY mixture is a clear indication of there being different locations of probe molecules within this solvent mixture. We assume that the slowing-down of the solvation time could be a reflection of several aspects, including the inherit inhomogeneity, intriguing structural transformations in the DMSO-GLY mixture, percolation among DMSO molecules and network structure formation, where DMSO:GLY complexes contribute to the dynamical features.

Excited state dipole solvation of three coumarin dyes with different hydrophobicities was studied in DMSO-glycerol binary solvent. The solvation times obtained from the three dyes are remarkably different. The highly hydrophilic dye coumarin 343 (C343) exhibits the slowest solvation time (>12 ns) among all the dyes we used. This is in contrast to the most hydrophobic dye coumarin 153 (C153), where the solvated state is reached just within ∼104 ps. However, the moderately hydrophobic dye coumarin 480 (C480) demonstrates an intermediate (∼396 ps) solvation time. Unprecedented slowdown of solvation time of C343 is probably due to the slow diffusion of solvent molecules in the glycerol-rich first solvation shell followed by hydrogen bond rearrangements around the solute dipole. On the other hand, fast solvation of hydrophobic dye C153 is most likely caused by the fast reorganization dynamics of hydrophobic -CH groups of DMSO or the carbon backbone of the glycerol molecule around the solute dipole. Interestingly, a remarkable probe dependency in solvation dynamics was not observed in the case of DMSO-water binary solvent or in a neat solvent isopropanol. Probe dependent solvation in a DMSO-glycerol mixture is attributed to the microscopic phase segregation and different locations of coumarin dyes within this binary solvent.

Excited state lifetime and steady state fluorescence of a series of CdS quantum dots (QDs) with different sizes in toluene were quenched by electron donor molecule N-methyl aniline (NMA). Static quenching Collins–Kimball (SQCK) diffusion model enabled convincing fittings to the steady-state and time-resolved data using nearly a same set of parameters, only after considering the presence of inherent quencher sites statistically distributed over the quantum dot surface. Electron injection rate shows strong chemical driving force dependency. QD with largest dimension (∼5.4 nm) used in this study exhibits a slightly higher chemical driving force (−ΔG 0 = 0.80 eV) of electron transfer as compared to that (−ΔG 0 = 0.79 eV) obtained for the smallest size QD (∼3.8 nm). However, such a small change in driving force causes nearly ∼3 times acceleration of the ET rate coefficient (k 0 = 8.30 × 109 M–1 s–1) within the larger size QD as compared to that (k 0 = 2.74 × 109 M–1 s–1) observed in smaller size QD. The time evolution of the sink term obtained from the Collins–Kimball fitting of ET kinetics shows different regimes of the kinetics (static and nonstationary).