Bandstructures of Conical Quantum Dots with Wetting Layers

Melnik, R.V.N. and Willatzen, M.

Nanotechnology, 15(1), 1--8, 2004

Abstract:

The influence of wetting-layer states on quantum-dot states and vice versa is analysed numerically for electrons in the conduction band in the general case with arbitrary kinetic energy in the plane of the quantum-well wetting layer. Since the analysed quantum dot is embedded in a barrier material with different properties, the effective mass approximation methodology leads to a Schrodinger model with discontinuous coefficients. This complicates the analysis and, in addition, requires a special attention to the formulation of boundary conditions for the entire structure, consisting of the quantum dot with wetting layer embedded in a barrier material. In the present paper, the complete model is formulated and solved numerically via a variational approach based on finite element approximations and Arnoldi iterations. By analysing different geometrical configurations, we demonstrate that the ground eigenstate of the entire structure can be considerably affected by the presence of the wetting layer. The dependency demonstrated between eigenstates of the 'pure' quantum dots and the quantum-well wetting layers indicates that a conventional analysis of quantum-dot structures without accounting for wetting layers may not be sufficient for an adequate characterization of quantum dots as active regions in future electronic and optical devices.