Phonon-assisted relaxation and tunneling in self-assembled quantum dot molecules
Abstract
We study theoretically phonon-assisted relaxation processes in a system consisting of one or two electrons confined in two vertically stacked self-assembled quantum dots. The calculation is based on a k.p approximation for single particle wave functions in a strained self-assembled structure. From these, two-particle states are calculated by including the Coulomb interaction and the transition rates between the lowest energy eigenstates are derived. We take into account phonon couplings via deformation potential and piezoelectric interaction and show that they both can play a dominant role in different parameter regimes. Within the Fermi golden rule approximation, we calculate the relaxation rates between the lowest energy eigenstates which lead to thermalization on a picosecond time scale in a narrow range of dot sizes.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1003.2535,
title = {Phonon-assisted relaxation and tunneling in self-assembled quantum dot molecules},
author = {Krzysztof Gawarecki and Michał Pochwała and Anna Grodecka-Grad and Paweł Machnikowski},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1003.2535},
year = {2010}
}
Comments
13 pages, 10 figures; moderately modified, some new dscussion (including 1 new figure)