This book reviews recent advances in the field of semiconductor quantum dots via contributions from prominent researchers in the scientific community. Special focus is given to optical, quantum optical, and spin properties of single quantum dots.

This multidisciplinary book provides up-to-date coverage of carrier and spin dynamics and energy transfer and structural interaction among nanostructures. Coverage also includes current device applications such as quantum dot lasers and detectors, as well as future applications to quantum information processing. The book will serve as a reference for anyone working with or planning to work with quantum dots.

Captures the most up-to-date research in the field, written in an accessible style by the world's leading experts.

This book introduces the wider field of functional nanomaterials sciences, with a strong emphasis on semiconductor photonics. Whether you are studying photonic quantum devices or just interested in semiconductor nanomaterials and their benefits for optoelectronic applications, this book offers you a pedagogical overview of the relevant subjects along with topical reviews. The book discusses different yet complementary studies in the context of ongoing international research efforts, delivering examples from both fundamental and applied research to a broad readership. In addition, a hand-full of useful optical techniques for the characterization of semiconductor quantum structures and materials are addressed. Moreover, nanostructuring methods for the production of low-dimensional systems, which exhibit advantageous properties predominantly due to quantum effects, are summarized. Science and engineering professionals in the interdisciplinary domains of nanotechnology, photonics, materials sciences, and quantum physics can familiarize themselves with selected highlights with eyes towards photonic applications in the fields of two-dimensional materials research, light–matter interactions, and quantum technologies.

This book captures cutting-edge research in semiconductor quantum dot devices, discussing preparation methods and properties, and providing a comprehensive overview of their optoelectronic applications. Quantum dots (QDs), with particle sizes in the nanometer range, have unique electronic and optical properties. They have the potential to open an avenue for next-generation optoelectronic methods and devices, such as lasers, biomarker assays, field effect transistors, LEDs, photodetectors, and solar concentrators. By bringing together leaders in the various application areas, this book is both a comprehensive introduction to different kinds of QDs with unique physical properties as well as their preparation routes, and a platform for knowledge sharing and dissemination of the latest advances in a novel area of nanotechnology.

When I was contacted by Kluwer Academic Publishers in the Fall of 200 I, inviting me to edit a volume of papers on the issue of electron transport in quantum dots, I was excited by what I saw as an ideal opportunity to provide an overview of a field of research that has made significant contributions in recent years, both to our understanding of fundamental physics, and to the development of novel nanoelectronic technologies. The need for such a volume seemed to be made more pressing by the fact that few comprehensive reviews of this topic have appeared in the literature, in spite of the vast activity in this area over the course of the last decade or so. With this motivation, I set out to try to compile a volume that would fairly reflect the wide range of opinions that has emerged in the study of electron transport in quantum dots. Indeed, there has been no effort on my part to ensure any consistency between the different chapters, since I would prefer that this volume instead serve as a useful forum for the debate of critical issues in this still developing field. In this matter, I have been assisted greatly by the excellent series of articles provided by the different authors, who are widely recognized as some of the leaders in this vital area of research.

The past few decades of research and development in solid-state semicon ductor physics and electronics have witnessed a rapid growth in the drive to exploit quantum mechanics in the design and function of semiconductor devices. This has been fueled for instance by the remarkable advances in our ability to fabricate nanostructures such as quantum wells, quantum wires and quantum dots. Despite this contemporary focus on semiconductor "quantum devices," a principal quantum mechanical aspect of the electron - its spin has it accounts for an added quan largely been ignored (except in as much as tum mechanical degeneracy). In recent years, however, a new paradigm of electronics based on the spin degree of freedom of the electron has begun to emerge. This field of semiconductor "spintronics" (spin transport electron ics or spin-based electronics) places electron spin rather than charge at the very center of interest. The underlying basis for this new electronics is the intimate connection between the charge and spin degrees of freedom of the electron via the Pauli principle. A crucial implication of this relationship is that spin effects can often be accessed through the orbital properties of the electron in the solid state. Examples for this are optical measurements of the spin state based on the Faraday effect and spin-dependent transport measure ments such as giant magneto-resistance (GMR). In this manner, information can be encoded in not only the electron's charge but also in its spin state, i. e.