Engineering Auger recombination in colloidal quantum dots via dielectric screening

Auger recombination is the main non-radiative decay pathway for multi-carrier states of colloidal quantum dots, which affects performance of most of their optical and optoelectronic applications. Outstanding single-exciton properties of CdSe/CdS core/shell quantum dots enable us to simultaneously study the two basic types of Auger recombination channels- negative trion and positive trion channels. Though Auger rates of positive trion are regarded to be much faster than that of negative trion for II-VI quantum dots in literature, our experiments find the two rates can be inverted for certain core/shell geometries. This is confirmed by theoretical calculations as a result of geometry-dependent dielectric screening. By varying the core/shell geometry, both types of Auger rates can be independently tuned for similar to 1 order of magnitude. Experimental and theoretical findings shed new light on designing quantum dots with necessary Auger recombination characteristics for high-power light-emitting-diodes, lasers, single-molecular tracking, super-resolution microscope, and advanced quantum light sources.