The 2D–3D growth mode transition during the initial stages of growth of highly strained InGaAs on GaAs is used to obtain quantum-sized dot structures. Transmission electron micrographs reveal that when the growth of In0.5Ga0.5As is interrupted exactly at the onset of this 2D–3D transition, dislocation-free islands (dots) of the InGaAs result. Size distributions indicate that these dots are ∼300 Å in diameter and remarkably uniform to within 10% of this average size. The areal dot densities can be varied between 109 and 1011 cm−2. The uniformity of the dot sizes is explained by a mechanism based on reduction in adatom attachment probabilities due to strain. We unambiguously demonstrate photoluminescence at ∼1.2 eV from these islands by comparing samples with and without dots. The luminescent intensities of the dots are greater than or equal to those of the underlying reference quantum wells.

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Capacitance spectroscopy is used to determine the allowed energy levels for electrons and holes in InAs self-assembled quantum dots embedded in GaAs. Using this technique, the relative energy of the electron and hole states is measured with respect to their respective energy band minima in the GaAs. This allows the construction of an energy level diagram for these quantum dots which correlates well with previously observed photoluminescence data. By tuning the device geometry, a fine structure in the electron ground state is revealed and attributed to Coulomb charging effects.

The energy levels of nanometer size InGaAs quantum dots epitaxially grown on GaAs by the coherent islanding effect are probed using selectively excited photoluminescence (PL), and PL excitation. A lateral-confinement-induced interlevel spacing of ∼30 meV between the first two states can be deduced from the spectra.

Ensembles of defect-free InAIAs islands of ultrasmall dimensions embedded in AIGaAs have been grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Cathodoluminescence was used to directly image the spatial distribution of the quantum dots by mapping their luminescence and to spectrally resolve very sharp peaks from small groups of dots, thus providing experimental verification for the discrete density of states in a zero-dimensional quantum structure. Visible luminescence is produced by different nominal compositions of InxAI(1-x)As-AIyGa(1-y)As.