Composition of the “GaAs” quantum dot,grown by droplet epitaxy

Self-assembled strain-free quantum dot (QD) structures were grown on AlGaAs surface by the droplet epitaxal method. The QDs were developed from pure Ga droplets under As pressure. The QDs were investigated by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Both techniques show that the QDs are very uniform in size and their distribution on the surface is also homogeneous. The high resolution cross-sectional TEM investigation shows perfect lattice matching between the QD and the substrate, and also the faceting of the side walls of QD can be identified exactly by lattice planes. Analytical TEM (elemental mapping by EELS) unambiguously identifies the presence of Al in the QD.     

Tuning of exciton states in a magnetic quantum ring

The exciton states in a CdTe quantum ring subjected to an external magnetic field containing a single magnetic impurity are investigated. We have used the multiband approximation which includes the heavy hole–light hole coupling effects. The electron–hole spin interactions and the s, p–d interactions between the electron, the hole and the magnetic impurity are also included. The exciton energy levels and optical transitions are evaluated using the exact diagonalization scheme. We show that due to the spin interactions it is possible to change the bright exciton state into the dark state and vice versa with the help of a magnetic field. We propose a new route to experimentally estimate the s, p–d spin interaction constants.     

Strong photoluminescence and laser operation of InAs quantum dots covered by a GaAsSb strain-reducing layer

GaAsSb strain-reducing layers (SRLs) are applied to cover InAs quantum dots (QDs) grown on GaAs substrates. The compressive strain induced in InAs QDs is reduced due to the tensile strain induced by the GaAsSb SRL, resulting in a redshift of photoluminescence (PL) peaks of the InAs QDs. A strong PL signal around a wavelength of 1.3 μm was observed even at room temperature. A laser diode containing InAs QDs with GaAsSb SRLs in the active region was fabricated, which exhibits laser oscillation in pulsed operation at room temperature. These results indicate that GaAsSb SRLs have a high potential for fabricating high efficient InAs QDs laser diodes operating at long-wavelength regimes.     

Optical absorptions of an exciton in a quantum ring: Effect of the repulsive core

We study the optical absorptions of an exciton in a quantum ring. The quantum ring is described as a circular quantum dot with a repulsive core. The advantage of our methodology is that one can investigate the influence of the repulsive core by varying two parameters in the confinement potential. The linear, third-order nonlinear and total optical absorption coefficients have been examined with the change of the confinement potential. The results show that the optical absorptions are strongly affected by the repulsive core. Moreover, the repulsive core can influence the oscillation in the resonant peak of the absorption coefficients.     

Effects of Majorana bound states on dissipation and charging in a quantum resistor-capacitor circuit

We investigate the effects of Majorana bound states on the ac response of a quantum resistor-capacitor circuit which is composed of a topological superconducting wire whose two ends are tunnel-coupled to a lead and a spinless quantum dot, respectively. The Majorana states formed at the two ends of the wire are found to suppress completely or enhance greatly the dissipation, depending on the strength of the overlap between two Majorana modes and/or the dot level. We compare the relaxation resistance and the quantum capacitance of the system with those of non-Majorana counterparts to find that the effects of the Majorana state on the ac response are genuine and cannot be reproduced in ordinary fermionic systems.     

Theory of pulse propagation and four-wave mixing in a quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier

A theory, combining the relations of pulse traveling into quantum dot (QD) semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with the four-wave mixing (FWM) theory in these SOAs, is developed. Carrier density pulsation (CDP), carrier heating (CH), and spectral hole burning (SHB) contributions on FWM efficiency are discussed. Effect of QD ground state and wetting layer are included. An additional parameter appears in the gain integral relation of QD SOAs. An equation formulating pulses in the QD SOAs is introduced. We have found that FWM in QD SOAs is detuning and is pulse width dependent. For short pulses, CH is dominant at high detunings (10–100 GHz) while at higher detunings (>100 GHz) the SHB is the dominant one. Undesired paunch behavior is shown in QD SOAs then, CDP must be reduced.     

Study of post-growth annealing and Ga coverage effects in low-density GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots grown by modified droplet epitaxy

We present a detailed analysis of the Ga coverage and of the post-growth annealing effects on the optical properties of very-low-density self-assembled GaAs/AlGaAs quantum dots grown by modified droplet epitaxy. Through theoretical calculation of the QD electronic states, including thermally activated Al–Ga interdiffusion processes, we were able to relate our spectroscopic observations to QD structural properties.     

Influence of Ga coverage on the sizes of GaAs quantum dash pairs grown by high temperature droplet epitaxy

We investigate the formation of GaAs quantum dash pairs with different coverages by droplet epitaxy. The GaAs quantum dash pairs of various sizes are fabricated by high temperature droplet epitaxy. Dual‐sized quantum dash pairs are observed along $[01\bar 1]$ orientation. Depending on the Ga cov‐ erage, the width of the quantum dash pairs can be tuned from ～100 nm to ～300 nm while keeping the height in the range of 4 nm to 10 nm. The coverage dependence of quantum dash pairs is also confirmed with photoluminescence measurement. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Investigation of various optical transitions in GaAs/Al0.3Ga0.7As double quantum ring grown by droplet epitaxy

This work examines the optical transitions of a GaAs double quantum ring (DQR) embedded in Al_0.3Ga_0.7As matrix by photoreflectance spectroscopy (PR). The GaAs DQR was grown by droplet epitaxy (DE). The optical properties of the DQR were investigated by excitation‐intensity and temperature‐dependent PR. The various optical transitions were observed in PR spectra, whereas the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum shows only the DQR and GaAs band emissions. The various optical transitions were identified for the GaAs near‐band‐edge transition, surface confined state (SCS), DQR confined state, wetting layer (WL), spin–orbital split (E_GaAs + Δ_o), and AlGaAs band transition. PR spectroscopy can identify various optical transitions that are invisible in PL. The PR results show that the GaAs/AlGaAs DQR has complex electronic structures due to the various interfaces resulting from DE.     

Towards a definition of the quantum ergodic hierarchy: Ergodicity and mixing

In a previous paper we have given a general framework for addressing the definition of quantum chaos by identifying the conditions that a quantum system must satisfy to lead to non-integrability in its classical limit. In this paper we will generalize those results, with the purpose of defining the two lower levels of the quantum ergodic hierarchy: ergodicity and mixing. We will also argue for the physical relevance of this approach by considering a particular example where our formalism has been successfully applied.     

Effect of a buffer layer between the shell and ligand on the optical properties of an exciton and biexciton in type-II quantum dot nanocrystals

In this study, we have investigated the effect of the buffer layers on the electronic and optical properties of an exciton (X) and a biexciton (XX) in a type-II CdTe/CdSe quantum dot nanocrystal. In an experimental study, it has been reported that when a CdTe/CdSe quantum dot nanocrystal is coated by a ZnTe material as a buffer layer, the photoluminescence quantum yield is growing from 4 to 20%. We have confirmed theoretically this improvement and extended the calculations to an XX structure. In the calculations, two different semiconductor materials, CdS and ZnTe, have been considered for the buffer layer. We have theoretically shown that the buffer layer causes an increase in the radiative oscillator strength of both X and XX. When the ZnTe is used as the buffer layer, the oscillator strength becomes stronger when compared to CdSe buffer material because of higher conduction band offset between CdSe and ZnTe.     

Electronic states and the resonant optical non-linearity of exciton in a narrow band InSb quantum dot

Binding energy, interband emission energy and the non-linear optical properties of exciton in an InSb/InGa_xSb_1−x quantum dot are computed as functions of dot radius and the Ga content. Optical properties are obtained using the compact density matrix approach. The dependence of non-linear optical processes on the dot sizes is investigated for different Ga concentrations. The linear, third order non-linear optical absorption coefficients, susceptibility values and the refractive index changes of the exciton are calculated for different concentrations of gallium content. It is found that gallium concentration has great influence on the optical properties of InSb/InGa_xSb_1−x dots.     

Entanglement propagation and typicality of measurements in the quantum Kac ring

We study the time evolution of entanglement in a new quantum version of the Kac ring, where two spin chains become dynamically entangled by quantum gates, which are used instead of the classical markers. The features of the entanglement evolution are best understood by using knowledge about the behavior of an ensemble of classical Kac rings. For instance, the recurrence time of the quantum many-body system is twice the length of the chain and “thermalization” only occurs on time scales much smaller than the dimension of the Hilbert space. The model thus elucidates the relation between the results of measurements in quantum and classical systems: While in classical systems repeated measurements are performed over an ensemble of systems, the corresponding result is obtained by measuring the same quantum system prepared in an appropriate superposition repeatedly.     

Shape effects on the electronic structure and the optical gain of InAsN/GaAs nanostructures: From a quantum lens to a quantum ring

The electronic structures of self-assembled InAs_1−xN_x/GaAs nanostructures from quantum lens to quantum rings (QRs) are calculated using the 10-band k.p method and the valence force field (VFF) method. With the variation of shape of the nanostructure and nitrogen (N) content, it shows that the N and the strains can significantly affect the energy levels especially the conduction band because the N resonant state has repulsion interaction with the conduction band due to the band anticrossing (BAC). The structures with N and greater height have smaller transition energy, and the structures with N have greater optical gain due to its overwhelming greater value of factor _fc+_fv−1$f_{\text{c}}+f_{\text{v}}-1$. After analyzing the shape effect, we suggested that the nanostructures with volcano shape are preferred because the maximum optical gain occurs for quantum volcano. With our simulation result, researchers could select quantum dots (QDs) structures to design laser with better performance.     

Splitting of the Fano resonance by Coulomb interactions in a two-dot quantum ring

We study the splitting of the Fano resonance in a Aharonov–Bohm interferometer with a quantum dot in each of its arms. Both intra- and inter-dot Coulomb repulsions are taken into account by employing the Keldysh nonequilibrium Green’s function technique. The single narrow Fano resonance in the noninteracting case is split into two in the presence of either intra- or inter-dot Coulomb interaction. We find that four Fano peaks emerge in the conductance or local density of states spectra when the two kinds of interactions exist simultaneously. Such behavior holds true for the accompanying broad Breit–Wigner type resonance. We also show that the positions of the Fano peaks can be tuned with the aid of the magnetic flux penetrating through the ring, which might have practical applications in device design or quantum computation.     

Effect of the dielectric-constant mismatch and magnetic field on the binding energy of hydrogenic impurities in a spherical quantum dot

Within the effective mass approximation and variational method the effect of dielectric constant mismatch between the size-quantized semiconductor sphere, coating and surrounding environment on impurity binding energy in both the absence and presence of a magnetic field is considered. The dependences of the binding energy of a hydrogenic on-center impurity on the sphere and coating radii, alloy concentration, dielectric-constant mismatch, and magnetic field intensity are found for the GaAs–Ga_1−xAl_xAs–AlAs (or vacuum) system.     

Hydrogenic impurity in a quantum dot: Comparison between the variational and strong perturbation methods

A comparison is given between the variational and strong perturbation techniques. It has been shown that the variational method gives, in general, better results. Also, a new formulation is presented for the strong perturbation technique that depends on a simpler equivalent form of the perturbed part of the Hamiltonian. Moreover, common expressions which are valid for both treatments have been obtained. The results are applied to calculate the binding energy for a hydrogenic impurity placed in a finite confining potential spherical quantum dot in the states (1s), (2p) and (2s). The results obtained hitherto for a central impurity by using the strong perturbation technique are deduced in a much simpler way. As regards the off-central impurity some new expressions have been derived in both treatments. The numerical results for the two states (1s) and (2p) have also been investigated.     

Influence of the image charge effect on the hydrogen-like impurity-bound polaron in a spherical quantum dot in the presence of an electric field

We have investigated the influence of an external electric field on the binding energies and polaronic shifts of the ground and some first few excited states of a hydrogenic impurity in a spherical quantum dot by taking into account the image charge effect. By using Landau–Pekar variational method the general analytical expression is obtained for the impurity bound-polaron energies. It has been numerically identified the conditions (electric field, nominal radius of quantum dot, etc.) in which the bound-polaron states can be existence in GaAs quantum dot. We have shown that the polaronic shifts in the binding energy of 1s-like state are the same in cases with and without image charge effect while they for 2s-like state are not coincide and have different monotonic behavior versus confinement potential. Electron–phonon interaction lifts the degeneracy of the 2px-, 2py-, and 2pz-like states of a donor impurity and reduces their binding energies.     

Hydrostatic pressure and electric and magnetic field effects on the binding energy of a hydrogenic donor impurity in InAs Pöschl-Teller quantum ring

We consider the effects of electric and magnetic fields as well as of hydrostatic pressure on the donor binding energy in InAs Pöschl-Teller quantum rings. The ground state energy and the electron wave function are calculated within the effective mass and parabolic band approximations, using the variational method. The binding energy dependencies on the electric field strength and the hydrostatic pressure are reported for different values of quantum ring size and shape, the parameters of the Pöschl-Teller confining potential, and the magnetic field induction. The results show that the binding energy is an increasing or decreasing function of the electric field, depending on the chosen parameters of the confining potential. Also, we have observed that the binding energy is an increasing/decreasing function of hydrostatic pressure/magnetic field induction. Likewise, the impurity binding energy behaves as an increasing/decreasing function of the inner/outer radii of the quantum ring nanostructure.     

Photoionization and binding energy of a donor impurity in a quantum dot under an electric field: Effects of the hydrostatic pressure and temperature

Using the perturbation approach, we have calculated the donor impurity related photoionization cross-section in a quantum dot under different temperature and hydrostatic pressure conditions. Our calculation have revealed the dependence of the photoionization cross-section on the confinement strength, temperature and hydrostatic pressure.