Investigation of femtosecond electronic dephasing in CdSe nanocrystals using quantum-beat-suppressed photon echoes

We report the first direct measurements of femtosecond electronic dephasing in CdSe nanocrystals using three-pulse photon echoes and a novel mode-suppression technique. We are able to separate the dynamics of the coherently excited LO phonons from the underlying electron-hole dephasing by suppressing the quantum beats. The homogeneous linewidth of these materials at 15 K results from electronic dephasing in \ensuremath{\sim}85 fs, approximately half of which is due to acoustic phonon modes. Contributions from acoustic phonons dominate the homogeneous linewidth at room temperature.