Electrical control of photoluminescence wavelength from semiconductor quantum dots in a ferroelectric polymer matrix

We report controllable tuning of the room temperature photoluminescence band of CdSe semiconductor quantum dots embedded in thin films of ferroelectric copolymer of vinylidene fluoride and trifluaroethylene made by Langmuir-Blodgett deposition, The high breakdown strength of the polymer permits the application of electric fields of up to 400 MV/m and results in a shift in the photoluminescence peak by up to 9 am, nearly half the fluorescence band width. Moreover, we found that at these high electric fields, the Stark effect exhibits unusual fourth power dependence. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3651322]