Abstract and subjects
Thick-shell or “giant” core/shell nanocrystal quantum dots (gQDs) are efficient and stable emitters. Their characteristic properties of non-blinking and non-photobleaching emission, as well as suppressed non-radiative Auger recombination and minimal self-reabsorption (due to a large effective Stokes shift) make them relevant to both single-emitter and many-emitter applications, e.g., live-cell single-molecule tracking in the biosciences and down-conversion phosphors for solid-state lighting. Here, I will discuss how gQDs are also ideal “building blocks” for achieving additive functionalities through synthesis and modified emission properties through integration with fabricated photonic structures. gQDs have been synthetically incorporated into the interior of a gold shell, resulting in “plasmonic gQDs” that exhibit efficient photoluminescence combined with efficient photothermal transduction and thermometry. Furthermore, through direct patterning of gQDs into all-dielectric antennas, we show an approach for realizing emitter-antenna couples (toward controlling the motion of photons) that is both deterministic and reproducible.