Photoluminescence limiting of colloidal PbS quantum dots

Abstract

The exposure of colloidal 2 nm PbS quantum dots to growing continuous wave laser excitation at 532 nm increases the photoluminescence intensity with the square root of the optical stimulus. The results herein in conjunction with previous findings [B. Ullrich and H. Xi, Opt. Lett. 38, 4698 (2013)] advocate the square root trend to be the general limiting function for photo-carrier transport and emission of optically excited nano-sized materials. We further show that the excitation of one electron-hole pair per quantum dot defines the saturation threshold for photoluminescence intensity and dynamic band filling.