Colloidal chemical synthesis and nonlinear optical properties of cadmium chalcogenide semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots

The nonlinear refraction and the nonlinear figure of merit of CdTe nanocrystal quantum dots in toluene were estimated to be /spl sim/-1/spl times/10/sup -13/ m/sup 2//W and /spl sim/200. The possible origins of the large optical nonlinearity of nanocrystals are the quantum confinement and surface trapped state effects.