CONFINAMIENTO NANOSC´OPICO EN ESTRUCTURAS ... - It works!

IntroductionThe earliest studies on confined quantum systems should be traced backto the beginning of quantum mechanics [1]. Although they were at first in apurely theoretical field of science, the appearance and fast development inthe last few decades of new experimental techniques aimed at manufacturingand characterizing semiconductor structures at the mesoscopic and nanoscopicscales (low dimensional structures) [2, 3, 4] have turned the study ofquantum confinement into one of the fields of utmost technological interest.Particularly, the need for obtaining smaller and more efficient electronic deviceshas turned the research in nanocrystals into one of the fastest areasof development in the field of semiconductors. Semiconductor nanocrystals,also referred to as quantum dots (QDs), represent, indeed, the final goalin microelectronics [5, 6, 7]. They are structures with characteristic dimensionsof the same order or even smaller than the associated De Debrogliewavelength of their carriers (electrons and holes), whose properties acquiretherefore a zero-dimensional (discrete) behavior.The technological interest of these artificial atoms (as they are also referredto due to the paralelism that the discrete character of their spectrumholds with natural atoms) lies in the possibility of designing their propertiesthrough their size and shape control during the manufacturing process.This turns them into very versatile components for designing new and fascinatingelectronic and opto-electronic devices. The potential application ofthese nanostructures covers a wide range of fields, such as nanoelectronics,communication, biomedicine or optics [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13].Besides its obvious technological appeal, these structures also raise aninterest on fundamental physics. The flexibility they offer to mould theirenergetic structure makes them specially attractive for the exploration andstudy of novel physics phenomena, since they allow particular conditionswhich cannot be found in natural systems to be designed. The study ofvii