Role of Emissive and Non-Emissive Complex Formations in Photoinduced Electron Transfer Reaction of CdTe Quantum Dots

Bimolecular photoinduced electron transfer (PET) from excited state CdTe quantum dot (QD*) to an electron deficient molecule 2,4-dinitrotoluene (DNT) is studied in toluene. We observed two types of QD-DNT complex formations; (i) non-emissive complex, in which DNT is embedded deep inside the surface polymer layer of QD and (ii) emissive complex, in which DNT molecules are attached to QDs but approach to the QD core is shielded by polymer layer. Because of its non-emissive nature, the lifetime of QD is not affected by dark complex formation, though the steady-state emission is greatly quenched. However, emissive complex formation causes both, lifetime and steady-state emission quenching. In our fitting model, consideration of Poisson distribution of the attached quencher (DNT) molecules at QD surface enables a comprehensive fitting to our time resolved data. QD-DNT complex formation was confirmed by an isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) study. Fitting to the time resolved data using a stochastic kinetic model shows moderate increase (0.05 ns(-1) to 0.072 ns(-1)) of intrinsic quenching rate with increasing the QD particle size (from approximate to 3.2 nm to approximate to 5.2 nm). Our fitting also reveals that the number of DNT molecules attached to a single QD increases from approximate to 0.1-0.2 to approximate to 1.2-1.7, as the DNT concentration is increased from approximate to 1 mm to 17.5 mm. Complex formation at higher quencher concentration assures that the observed PET kinetics is a thermodynamically controlled process where solvent diffusion has no role on it.