ELECTRONS CONFINED INSIDE NANO-PYRAMID

Electrons confined inside NANO-PYRAMID

Quantum dots are nanostructures of semiconducting materials that behave a lot like single atoms and are very easy to produce. Given their special properties, researchers see huge potential for quantum dots in technological applications. Before this can happen, however, we need a better understanding of how the electrons "trapped" inside them behave. Dresden physicists have recently observed how electrons in individual quantum dots absorb energy and emit it again as light.


Quantum dots look like tiny pyramids. Inside each of these nano-pyramids are always only one or two electrons that essentially "feel" the constricting walls around them and are therefore tightly constrained in their movability. TU Dresden and the Leibniz Institute for solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) have now studied the special energy states of the electrons trapped inside individual quantum dots.