Optical Properties of Planar Nanostructures Based on Semiconductor Quantum Dots and Plasmonic Metal Nanoparticles

The optical properties of a composite material consisting of a thin polymer film, which is activated by semiconductor CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) and silver nanoparticles, on a transparent dielectric substrate have been investigated. It is revealed that the presence of silver nanoparticles leads to an increase in the QD absorption (by a factor of 4) and in the fluorescence intensity (by a factor of 10), whereas the fluorescence time drops by a factor of about 10. Excitation of the composite medium by a pulsed laser is found to result in narrowing of the fluorescence band and a sublinear dependence of its intensity on the pulse energy. In the absence of silver nanoparticles, the fluorescence spectrum of QDs is independent of the excitation-pulse energy density, and the fluorescence intensity depends linearly on the pulse energy in the entire range of energy densities, up to 75 mJ/cm².