What is burst nucleation?
This is a part answer - an annotated short list of references regarding burst nucleation and mechanisms of nanoparticle growth.

Model of nanocrystal formation in solution by burst nucleation and diffusional growth (Robb and Privman, 2007), in this article the authors


  present a model with the assumptions of instantaneous thermalization below the critical nucleus size and irreversible diffusive growth above the critical size


A main feature of this article is that


  for the first time formulates LaMer's explanation of burst nucleation in a manner allowing quantitative calculations.


This is followed up by one of the authors the next year with the article Diffusional Nucleation of Nanocrystals and Their Self-Assembly into Uniform Colloids (Privman, 2008), where he 


  review theoretical explanation of mechanisms of control of uniformity in growth of nanosize particles and colloids.


An explanatory diagram of LaMer's explanation (referred to in the 1st article) is shown below:



The image is from the article Controlled synthesis of colloidal silver nanoparticles in organic solutions: empirical rules for nucleation engineering (Sun, 2012) - unfortunately, the article is behind a paywall.

However, a sample chapter explaining the process in full entitled Growth of Nanocrystals in Solution (Viswanatha and Sarma), provides a greater detail about the processes involved with nanoparticle growth.