Blinking suppression of single quantum dots in agarose gel

Abstract

Fluorescence blinking is commonly observed in single molecule/particle spectroscopy, but it is an undesirable feature in many applications. We demonstrated that single CdSe/ZnS quantum dots in agarose gel exhibited suppressed blinking behavior. In addition, the long-time exponential bending tail of the power-law blinking statistics was found to be influenced by agarose gel concentration. We suggest that electron transfer from the light state to the dark state might be blocked due to electrostatic surrounding of gel with inherent negatively charged fibers.