The authors report that anisotropic confining potentials in laterally-coupled semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have large impacts in optical transitions and energies of inter-shell collective electronic excitations. The observed anisotropies are revealed by inelastic light scattering as a function of the in-plane direction of light polarization and can be finely controlled by modifying the geometrical shape of the QDs. These experiments show that the tuning of the QD confinement potential offers a powerful method to manipulate electronic states and far-infrared inter-shell optical transitions in quantum dots.
We present here an atomistic theory of the electronic and optical properties of hexagonal InAsP quantum dots in InP nanowires in the wurtzite phase. These self-assembled quantum dots are unique in that their heights, shapes, and diameters are well known. Using a combined valence-force-field, tight-binding, and configuration-interaction approach we perform atomistic calculations of single-particle states and excitonic, biexcitonic and trion complexes as well as emission spectra as a function of the quantum dot height, diameter and As versus P concentration. The atomistic tight-binding parameters for InAs and InP in the wurtzite crystal phase were obtained by ab initio methods corrected by empirical band gaps. The low energy electron and hole states form electronic shells similar to parabolic or cylindrical quantum confinement, only weakly affected by hexagonal symmetry and As fluctuations. The relative alignment of the emission lines from excitons, trions and biexcitons agrees with that for InAs/InP dots in the zincblende phase in that biexcitons and positive trions are only weakly bound. The random distribution of As atoms leads to dot-to-dot fluctuations of a few meV for the single-particle states and the spectral lines. Due to the high symmetry of hexagonal InAsP nanowire quantum dots the exciton fine structure splitting is found to be small, of the order a few $mu$eV with significant random fluctuations in accordance with experiments.
We present theoretical results concerning inelastic light (Raman) scattering from semiconductor quantum dots. The characteristics of each dot state (whether it is a collective or single-particle excitation, its multipolarity, and its spin) are determined independently of the Raman spectrum, in such a way that common beliefs used for level assignments in experimental spectra can be tested. We explore the usefulness of below band gap excitation and an external magnetic field to identify charge and spin excited states of a collective or single-particle nature.
We have investigated the magnetoplasmon excitations in arrays of circular and noncircular quantum dots within the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-von Weizsacker approximation. Deviations from the ideal collective excitations of isolated parabolically confined electrons arise from local perturbations of the confining potential as well as interdot Coulomb interactions. The latter are unimportant unless the interdot separations are of the order of the size of the dots. Local perturbations such as radial anharmonicity and noncircular symmetry lead to clear signatures of the violation of the generalized Kohn theorem. In particular, the reduction of the local symmetry from SO(2) to $C_4$ results in a resonant coupling of different modes and an observable anticrossing behaviour in the power absorption spectrum. Our results are in good agreement with recent far-infrared (FIR) transmission experiments.
Using spin-density-functional theory, we study the electronic states of a two-dimensional parabolic quantum dot with up to N=58 electrons. We observe a shell structure for the filling of the dot with electrons. Hunds rule determines the spin configuration of the ground state, but only up to 22 electrons. At specific N, the ground state is degenerate, and a small elliptical deformation of the external potential induces a rotational charge-density-wave (CDW) state. Previously identified spin-density-wave (SDW) states are shown to be artifacts of broken spin symmetry in density-functional theory.
We present a fully electronic analogue of coherent population trapping in quantum optics, based on destructive interference of single-electron tunneling between three quantum dots. A large bias voltage plays the role of the laser illumination. The trapped state is a coherent superposition of the electronic charge in two of these quantum dots, so it is destabilized as a result of decoherence by coupling to external charges. The resulting current I through the device depends on the ratio of the decoherence rate Gamma_phi and the tunneling rates. For Gamma_phi --> 0 one has simply I=e Gamma_phi. With increasing Gamma_phi the current peaks at the inverse trapping time. The direct relation between I and Gamma_phi can serve as a means of measuring the coherence time of a charge qubit in a transport experiment.