We present a femtosecond Kerr-gated wide-field fluorescence microscope capable of imaging ultraviolet luminescence from single nanostructures. The microscope can operate in either steady state and transient mode and can also function as both an ultrafast imaging instrument as well as a femtosecond fluorescence spectrometer. The core of the setup is an optical Kerr gate, optimized for ultraviolet transmission, that has been integrated into in the optical train of a homebuilt wide field microscope. The sub-90 femtosecond temporal resolution and sub-micron spatial resolution allows for the simultaneous probing of ultrafast dynamics of multiple single UV emitting nanostructures. In contrast to ensemble-averaged measurements, the ultrafast measurement of single semiconductor nanostructures can facilitate the understanding of how size, morphology and composition influence luminescence dynamics.<br/>  In this work, we demonstrate the measurement of the ultrafast dynamics of single nanowires of the wide band-gap semiconductor ZnO by femtosecond Kerr-gated wide-field fluorescence microscopy.  We are able to extract emission dynamics from localized regions of high emission intensity from individual nanowires and perform comparisons between separate nanowires at increasing excitation intensities.  Additionally, changes in the transient emission spectra are tracked. We present the application of the microscope setup along with a preliminary analysis of the extracted transient dynamics.<br/> <br/>

Measuring ultrafast dynamics of single ZnO nanostructures by ultraviolet femtosecond Kerr-gated wide-field fluorescence microscopy

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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