Excitation and recombination photodynamics in colloidal cubic SiC nanocrystals

We studied the photodynamics of the different-sized colloidal cubic SiC nanocrystals in distinct polar and nonpolar solvents. The UV-visible absorption spectral study indicates that the SiC nanocrystals with an average size of 4 nm retain an indirect energy gap; whereas the smaller quantum dots about 1 nm in size exhibit discrete and sharp absorption features indicating their discrete energy levels and the result agrees well with theoretical results. The colloidal SiC nanocrystals exhibit triple-exponential photoluminescence decay with nanosecond-order lifetimes which show slight size-dependence. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3518062]