Abstract and subjects
Conference Title: 2013 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) Conference Start Date: 2013, June 9 Conference End Date: 2013, June 14 Conference Location: San Jose, CA, USA We describe the development and characterization of two novel non-blinking "giant" nanocrystal quantum dot (g-NQD) systems and their application to single-particle tracking in live cells real-time and in three dimensions. The two g-NQDs -- CdSe/CdS and InP/CdS -- are characterized by a thick shell layer (>10 monolayers of CdS), a quasi-type-II or type-II electronic structure, and extremely suppressed non-radiative Auger recombination and photobleaching, in addition to suppressed blinking. We show that these unique traits make this new class of NQD ideal molecular probes for observing spatio-temporal dynamics of cellular processes.