Investigating individual chromopores within single porous silicon nanoparticles

We use single nanoparticle luminescence microscopy to determine a distribut ion of individual chromophores present in porous Si nanoparticles. From the se distributions, we determine the average number of emitting chromophores in each nanoparticle and the fluorescence emission count rate of a single c hromophore within the porous silicon nanoparticle. We also show that the sa me size nanoparticles prepared under two different electrochemical conditio ns have different fluorescence peak maxima, and exhibit different chromopho re number distributions, consistent with the quantum confinement model for the luminescence in porous silicon. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.