Correlated Temporal Fluctuations and Random Intermittency of Optical Transitions in a Single Quantum Dot

Abstract

Single self-assembled CdSe quantum dots (QDs) are shown to exhibit random fluctuations of the ground state emission energy as well as a spontaneous on/off blinking of the luminescence. A comparison of samples with different densities of extendend crystal defects indicates that Frenkel stacking faults are involved in the mechanism of these phenomena. We demonstrate that single emission lines originating from the same QD show a strong correlation of their transient energy shifts as well as simultaneous blinking.