Single-Particle States of Quantum Dots

Abstract

The energy of an electron confined in an area as small as a quantum dot is strongly quantized, i.e., the energy spectrum is discrete. In typical structures, with characteristic dimensions in the range of 10–100 nm, the distance between neighboring energy levels is on the order of a few meV. As shown in Fig. 3.1, the quantization of energy, or alternatively, the reduction of the dimensionality of the system, is directly reflected in the dependence of the density of states on energy.