Thesis presented October 18, 2005

Abstract:
We studied the optical properties of II-VI semiconductor nanocrystals based on CdSe. Firstly, we designed a fast and precise experimental setup to measure their fluorescence quantum yield which helped, combined with photoluminescent measurements, to the optimization of their synthesis. The blinking and antibunching phenomena have been studied on single nanocrystals thanks to a time-resolved micro-photoluminescence setup that we devised. The inclusion of nanocrystals in conducting polymers for a better understanding of blinking has been studied. We also modified the emission diagram of nanocrystals thanks to a gold mirror half-cavity in order to collect more fluorescence signal from a single nanocrystal. Finally, we coupled the nanocrystals' emission to whispering gallery modes of silica microdisks.

Keywords:
nanocrystals, quantum dots, blinking, quantum yield, antibunching, II-VI semiconductors, metallic mirror, silica microdisks

On-line thesis.