• Pelliser, Laurent
• Manceau, Mathieu
• Leménager, Godefroy
• Coolen, Laurent
• Devittorio, Massimo
• Lacaze, Emmanuelle
• Bramati, Alberto
• Vezzoli, Stefano
• Carbone, Luigi
• Lethiec, Clotilde
• Maître, Agnès
• Coursault, Delphine
• Pisanello, Ferruccio

Abstract

We use arrays of liquid crystal defects, linear smectic dislocations, to trap semi-conductor CdSe/CdS dot-in-rods which behave as single photon emitters. We combine measurements of the emission diagram together with measurements of the emitted polarization of the single emitters. We show that the dot-in-rods are confined parallel to the linear defects to allow for a minimization of the disorder energy associated with the dislocation cores. We demonstrate that the electric dipoles associated with the dot-in-rods, tilted with respect to the rods, remain oriented in the plane including the smectic linear defects and being perpendicular to the substrate, most likely due to the dipole/dipole interactions between the dipoles of the liquid crystal molecules and the dot-in-rods ones.Using smectic dislocations, we can consequently orient nanorods along a unique direction for a given substrate, independently of the ligands’ nature, without any induced aggregation, leading as well to a fixed azimuthal orientation for the associated dot-in-rods’ dipoles. These results open the way for a fine control of nanoparticle anisotropic optical properties, in particular a fine control of single photon emission polarization.

Topics

• nanoparticle
• anisotropic
• dislocation
• liquid crystal