Spectral diffusion of neutral and charged exciton transitions in single CdSe/ZnS nanocrystals due to quantum-confined Stark effect

Photoluminescence (PL) fluctuations of single semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs), such as PL blinking and spectral diffusion (SD), reflect the quantum nature of charges in the NCs. Through simultaneous measurements of PL spectra and lifetimes on single CdSe/ZnS NCs, PL of neutral excitons is found to exhibit a unique behavior of SD, which is accompanied by changes of radiative recombination lifetime. We find that the SD of neutral excitons originated from the quantum-confined Stark effect, which also affects the SD of charged excitons observed during PL blinking.