a device which traps electrons in a very small region of space, forcing them to behave like tiny standing waves, just as they do in atoms
a nanoscale semiconductor that can trap a single electron
an artificial atom in which electrons are confined spatially by an electrostatic potential much in the way that a nucleus localizes electrons in an atom
an artificial structure in which an electron or hole is confined to a region so small that quantum mechanical effects dominate
a region in a semiconductor crystal that confines electrons or electron-hole pairs in a three-dimensional region measuring nanometers in size
a semiconducting crystal nanotechnology
a semiconductor crystal that has discrete energy states like an atom and can be optically triggered to generate photons
a semiconductor crystal with a diameter of a few nanometers, also called a nanocrystal,
a small semiconductor particle, connected to the outside world via tunnel barriers (closed dot) or ballistic point contacts (open dot)
a very small chunk of semiconductor material with quantum-like properties
A nanoscale crystalline structure made from cadmium selenide that absorbs white light and then re-emits it a couple of nanoseconds later in a specific color. The quantum dot was originally investigated for possible computer applications. Recently, researchers are investigating the use of quantum dots for medical applications, using the molecule-sized crystals as probes to track antibodies, viruses, proteins, or DNA within the human body. Raman spectroscopy Analysis of the intensity of Raman scattering, in which light is scattered as it passes through a material medium and suffers a change in frequency and a random alteration in phase. The resulting information is useful for determining molecular structure.
An isolated groups of atoms, numbering approximately 1,000 to 1,000,000, in the crystalline lattice of a semiconductor, with the dimensions of a single dot measured in nanometres (billionths of a metre). The atoms are coupled quantum mechanically so that electrons in the dot can exist only in a limited number of energy states, much as they do in association with single atoms. The dot can be thought of as a giant artificial atom having light-absorption and emission properties that can be tailored to various uses. Consequently, quantum dots were being investigated in applications ranging from the conversion of sunlight into electricity to new kinds of lasers.
A quantum dot is a semiconductor nanostructure that confines the motion of conduction band electrons, valence band holes, or excitons (pairs of conduction band electrons and valence band holes) in all three spatial directions. The confinement can be due to electrostatic potentials (generated by external electrodes, doping, strain, impurities), due to the presence of an interface between different semiconductor materials (e.g. in the case of self-assembled quantum dots), due to the presence of the semiconductor surface (e.g. in the case of a semiconductor nanocrystal), or due to a combination of these. A quantum dot has a discrete quantized energy spectrum.