Spontaneous photoluminescence oscillation in a colloidal dispersion of CdSe/ZnS core/shell nanocrystals

We report photoluminescence (PL) oscillation in organic-solvent dispersions of CdSe/ZnS core/shell nanocrystals (NCs), as well as in water dispersion, which have previously been reported. As temperature increases, the transition from periodic to chaotic oscillation through period doubling was observed. This phenomenon is similar to the observation in the closed unstirred Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) system. Experimental observations also suggest that NC aggregation is a key process for PL oscillation. We propose a hypothetic model based on this result.