QUANTUM-ENGINEERING OF III-V SEMICONDUCTOR STRUCTURES

We review some of the recent advances and developments in the field of III-V semiconductor quantum structures. We emphasize particularly the recent development of laterally confined structures in which self-assembly processes play an important role. The well controlled epitaxy of films of the III-V materials permits size-engineering of the materials in the growth direction. Further lateral confinement can be obtained using lithographic techniques to their limits or, going beyond these limits, by using the self-organizing motion of the atoms during the growth, such as in the case of V-grooves, patterned substrate, cleaved edge overgrowth, tilted or serpentine superlattices, or self-organizing quantum dots formed by the spontaneous coherent islanding effect during the growth of highly strained semiconductors. The influence of atomic-scale size-fluctuations on the confined energy levels will be examined in such quantum structures.