Effects of Plasmon-Exciton Coupling on the Optical Properties of CdSe/Zns Quantum Dots Coupled to Gold Nanoparticles

By using a multi-color, multi-modal imaging platform, we look into the effects of exciton-plasmon coupling on optical properties of a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) that is coupled to a nearby gold NPs (AuNPs). By exciting this coupled material with laser excitation energies that are either strongly or weakly resonating with the plasmon resonance of the AuNP, the effects of plasmon-exciton coupling was studied in detail by analyzing the changes in the photoluminescence signal, the photoluminescence lifetime, and the blinking pattern of the QD.