IMPOSING THE BOUNDARY-CONDITION IN A METHOD FOR TREATING QUANTUM-WELL WIRES

A recent calculation by Tsonchev and Goodfriend of the binding energy of a hydrogenic impurity in a quantum well wire employs a novel method of imposing the boundary condition at only a finite number of lines on the surface of the wire. We point out that, in several cases, the boundary condition in reality is imposed everywhere on the surface of the wire. In these cases, the approximation aspect of the method proves to be illusory in the sense that the imposition of the boundary condition is exact.