Date : Friday, February 8, 2002
Time : 3:00 PM
Location: Willet Science Center Room 101


Professor Dale Moore
Department of Chemistry
Mercer University

"The Unusually Intense Photoluminescence of Semiconductor Quantum Dots" 

Abstract:  Extremely small crystallites of semiconductors, such as cadmium sulfide (CdS), can be prepared by precipitation reaction in a product-size-limiting medium.  If the crystallite diameter is kept below about 10.0 nm, then the crystallites formed behave as quantum dots.  The dimensions of quantum dots are so small that excited electrons (and holes) are effectively modeled with the particle-in-a-box (PIB) – in other words, they are spatially confined.  This confinement increases the energy required to electronically excite a quantum dot and makes the optical-electronic properties of quantum dots size dependent.  Among the most unusual properties of quantum dots is their intense photoluminescence.  This seminar will be a brief introduction to semiconductor photoluminescence, the particular nature of quantum dots, and one theory to quantify the unusually intense quantum dot photoluminescence

Please join us for light refreshments at 2:45. We hope to see you there!