Suppression of quantum dot blinking in DTT-doped polymer films

In this report we evaluate the emission properties of single quantum dots embedded in a thin, thiol-containing polymer film. We report the suppression of quantum dot blinking leading to a continuous photon flux from both organic and water soluble quantum dots and demonstrate their application as robust fluorescent point sources for ultrahigh resolution localization. In addition, we apply the polymer coating to cell samples immunostained with antibody conjugated QDs and show that fluorescence intensity from the polymer embedded cells shows no sign of degradation after 67 h of continuous excitation. The reported thin polymer film coating may prove advantageous for immuno-cyto/histo-chemistry as well as for the fabrication of quantum dot containing devices requiring a reliable and stable photon source (including a single photon source) or stable charge characteristics while maintaining intimate contact between the quantum dot and the surrounding matrix. The benefits of colloidal, semiconductor quantum dots (QD) as point-like fluorescent sources have long been accepted by the scientific community.1-5 The tunable emission wavelength and continuous absorption spectrum, along with exceptional photostability are some of the key features rendering QDs advantageous for a variety of applications from fluorescent tag