Seminars & Colloquia

Probing Electronic Interactions in Quantum Dot-conjugated Organic Composite Nanostructures

Michael Barnes, University of Massachusetts, Chemistry

In this talk, I will discuss investigation of charge and energy transport in individual organic/inorganic hybrid nanoscale structures using single-molecule imaging techniques. The chemical system under study consists of a cadmium selenide quantum dot core whose surface is coordinated with semiconducting polymer oligomers. Recent research on this system has focused on a detailed understanding of the electronic interaction between the CdSe QD and semiconducting organic ligands, using polarization microscopy to study the asymmetric interactions of both linearly- and circularly-polarized excitation with quantum dot systems. We show that a linear polarization intrinsic to molecular transitions for the organic ligands in CdSe-OPV is transferred to the quantum dot core, and that the orientation of polarization is correlated with excitation polarization suggesting some exciting new applications in active photonic devices.