543

Electronic states in quantum dots: Effects of symmetry of the confining potential

T. Ezaki, Y . Sugimoto, N.Mori, and C. Hamaguchi
Department of Electronic Engineering; Osaka. University Japan 2-1 Yamada-ola, Suita, Osaka 565, Japan N-electron eigen states in circular, elliptic, and triangular shaped quantum dots (QDs) are calculated by numerically diagonalizing the N-particle Hamiltonian. In a circular QD, addition energy exhibits large values for N = 2 and 6 due to the complete shell filling, and shows slightly large values for N = 4 and 9 which corresponds to a spin-polarized half filling shell structure with the total spin of S = Ti (spin-triplet state) and S = 3 h / 2 (spin-quadruplet state), respectively. In elliptic QDs, the degeneracy of the single-particle states is removed, resulting in transition of the ground state from the spin-polarized half filling configuration to the spin singlet stat,e for a QD containing four electrons. The states with 3, 6, and 9 electrons in a triangular QD are found to be slightly more stable compared to a circular QD, which is interpreted in terms of a geometrical effect.
1 Introduction In quantum dots (QDs) containing a few electrons, the Coulomb interaction plays an important role in determining the energy sta.tes, and thus niaiiy particle energy levels depend strongly 011 the number of electrons in the QDs [l].Numerical calculations, therefore, require more sophisticated treatments such as an exact diagonalization method to obtain the electronic states in QDs. In this paper we calculate eigen states in QDs by numerically diagonalizing the N-particle Hamiltonian. We especially focus on the effects of the symmetry of confining potential on the electronic states.

2 Model and method We consider a vertical QD formed in an Ino.osGao,gsAs/AIGaAs double-barrier heterostructure [ 2 , 3 ] as shown in the inset in Fig 1, where the z-y plane and the z direction are taken to be parallel and perpendicular to the heteroiiiterfaces, respectively. In our model, electrons are assumed to be confined by the infinite square potential well, H ( z ) , of width W along the z direction, for simplicity. We model the lateral confining potential V ( z , by the following equation y)

wherew, is the confining frequencies along the v direction (v = z or y), a (= 0 or 1) is a parameter to specify the shape of the lateral confining potentia.1, and 4is the angle with respect to the specific axis in the x-y plane. When LY = 0, the contour line of V(z,y) becomes an ellipse (for w, # U,) or a circle (for U , = u ~ ) . triangular shaped confining potential can be obtained by setting 1 for A the parameter cy and putting U , = wY. For the QD modeled a,bove, the N-electron Hamiltonian can be written as follows
N

where 3to(ri)= (pi eAi)'//2m*,+ V ( z ; ,yi) H ( z ; ) is the single-electron Haniiltonian with A being the vector potential. The material parameters for Ino,0sGa,o,9sAsare computed by the linear interpolation of the parameters between bulk InAs and h i k GaAs, and we obtain the effective mass of an electron of m = 0 . 0 6 5 n ~and the static dielectric constant of t = 1 2 . 9 ~ 0 . In the '
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Number of electrons
Figure 1: Chemical potential differences in circular quantum dots with confining energy of 3.0ineV as a function of number of electrons. Schematic illustration of a vertical quantum dot formed in a double barrier heterostructure is shown in the inset.
Figure 2: The ground state energy in a circu-

lar quantum dot containing four electrons as a function of the magnetic field. Solid circles, open squares and open circles are the eigen states with total angular momentum of 0 , r t h and f26,respectively. The transition of the ground state from spin-triplet to spin-singlet takes place at B N 0.25T.

preseiit study, N-particle Slater deteriniiiants composed from the single-particle eigeii functions of the two dimensional isotropic and harmonic oscillator a.re taken as a basis set to dia,gonalize the total Hamiltonian of Eq. (2). Because the Confinement along the z direction is strong in real QDs [a,31 compared t o the confinement in the z-y plane, many eigeii-states fall in the lowest subband formed by the confining potential along the z direction, a i d the single-particle exited states along the z direction is ignored in the following. T h e QD is, therefore, regarded as a disc-like QD.

Results and discussion Figure 1 shows the chemical poteiitial difference, or addition energy, A ~ N p ~ -+p~ ~for the circular QD with hwz = hw, = 3meV as a function of N. The cheiiiical potential, p,,~, is defined by p~ % EN - EN-^ with EN being the ground state energy for the QD with N electrons. A ~ N has peaks at N = 2 and 6 because of the complete shell filling. In addition, a weak structure can be seen at N = 4 and 9 with the total spin of S = tZ (spin-triplet state) and S = 3h/2 (spinquadruplet state), respectively, which corresponds t o the spin-polarized half filling shell structure [2, 4 .Figure 2 shows the ground state energy in a circular quantum dot containing four electrons 1 as a function of the magnetic field applied along the z direction. Solid circles, open squares and open circles are the eigen states with total angular momentum of M = 0, &k and 1 2 h , respectively. T h e energy shift A due to the exchange interaction is found t o be 0.44meV. T h e tra,iisitioii of t h e ground state from the spin-triplet (A4 = 0) to the spin-singlet (M= -26) takes place at B 0.25T. In Fig. 3 , we plot A,uN for two different elliptic QDs with the same average confining energy of (hw2 hw,)/2 = 3meV. Open squares and open triangles indicate A,uj,r for the QD with
3

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l ' l ' l ' l ' l r

'

'

'

6-

8 4z 3 2W

F4 2
W

Circular dot U mx:uy=2.5:3.5 A mx:~,=2.O:4.0

0

4 2- spin
-

o_ I z
0

Circular dot mo=3meV

---

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triplet
I ' ' ' ' I

spin singlet
' ' ' i '

0
Figure 3: Addition energies in circular and elliptic quantum dots as a function of n u m b e r of electrons. Solid circles are the addition energies for the circular q u a n t u m dot with confining energy of 3meV. Open squares and triangles show the addition energies for elliptic quantum dots with (hw,,Aw,) = (2.5 meV, 3.5 meV) and ( Z meV, 4 meV), respectively.

Figure 4: Addition energies for QDs with four electrons as a function of the confining energy 6wy keeping tlie average confining energy a constant of 3meV. Open and solid circles correspond to the spin triplet and spin singlet ground state, respectively.

(hw,, hw,) = (2.5 meV, 3.5 nieV) and (2 meV, 4 IneV), respectively. Solid circles show the addition energies for the circular QD. For the elliptic QDs, the addition energy has no large peaks except for the peak at N = 6. This inay be interpreted in terms that the asymmetry of the confining potential results in removal of the degeneracy of the singleparticle states and mixing of many eigen states with various angular momenta. Figure 4 shows the addition energy for the elliptic QDs with N = 4 as a function of the confining potential hw, keeping the a,verage confining energy a constant value of 3meV. Open and solid circles correspond to the spin triplet and the spin singlet ground state for the QD containiiig four electrons, respe.ctively. For elliptic QDs with weak 6 asymmetry (3nieV < by 3.3meV), the spin triplet states remain the lowest eigen state, and the addition energy decreases with increasing the asymmetry due to the removal of the degeneracy of the single-particle states as nieiitioiied above. For QDs with tzw, > 3.3meV, the spin singlet state becomes the ground state, and the addition energy iiicrea,ses with increasing wV. This may be explained by considering the following fact. With increasing the asymmetry of the confining potential in the 2-y plane, a disc-like QD approaches to a needle-like QD, and the complete shell filling may take place in a needle-like QD coiitaiiiiiig four electrons. Figure 5 shows for tlie triangular QD of hw, = h+, 3 ineV in which ApN for the circular = QD are again plotted by solid circles for cornparison. The addition energies for the circular and the triangular QDs are found to exhibit ahnost the sa.ine clmracteristics. The a,dditioii energy for the triangular QD with N = 3, 6, and 9, however, is found to be slightly larger t h i i that of the circular QD. This feature may be expla,ined as follows. The density distributioll of electrons in

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546
QDs containing three electrons is plotted in Fig. 6(a.) for the circular QD and Fig. 6(b) for the triangular QD. As seen in the figure, electrons in the circuhr QD form a, rotationally symmetric distribution, and the electron density becomes s n d l in the center of the QD due to the electronelectron repulsion. On the other hand, in the triaiigula,r QD, each electroil moves toward each corner of the triangle and forms more stable state, giving rise to a slightly larger addition energy. For the same reason, electronic states for N = 6 and 9 in the triangular QD become slightly more stable compared to the case in the circular QD.
4

Conclusion

We calculated N-electron eigeii states in QDs with vertical confinement of square quantum well and with lateral confinement of circular, elliptic and triangular shaped potentials. The eigen states are obtained by diagonalizing N-particle Ha~niiltoiiiaii utilizing the Slater determinants composed from the single particle eigeii states for the isotropic and haririonic system. Due to the rota.tiona1 symmetry in a circular QD, electrons form the coniplete shell filling structures for N = 2 and 6, a.nd the spin polarized half filling structures for N = 4 and 9. In elliptic QDs, the addition energy exhibits no longer clear structure in the plot of addition energy us. number of electrons N , except for N = 6, which is explained in terms of the asymmetry of these systems. In a triangular QD, slightly stable states due to the localization of the electrons at the corners are expected for N = 3,6, and 9.

[l] Ashoori R C et al. 1993 Phys. Rev. Lett. 71 613-16 [a] Tarucha S et al. 1996 Phys. Rev. Lett. 77 3613-16 [3] Austing D G, Honda T and Taruclia S 1996 Semcond. Sci. Technol. 11 385-91 [4] Tanaka Y and Akera H 1997 J . Phys. Soc. Jpn. 66 15-5

6n

4-

4-2-

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i 4 of6electrons i 1'0' Number

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'
a

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Figure 5 : Chemical potential differences in a. circn1a.r quantum dot (solid circles) and a triangular quantum dot (open triangles) as a function of number of electrons. fLwz = hw, = 3 meV. Three dimensional view and contour lines of the triangular confining potential are plotted in the inset.

Figure 6 : Density distribution of electrons in the quantum dots conta.ining three electrons with a circular (a) and a triangular (b) shaped confining potential in the plane parallel to the heterointerface. is 20nm.

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