Electron relaxation in quantum dots by the interatomic Coulombic decay mechanism

Electron relaxation in quantum dot (QD) systems a has significant impact on QD optoelectronic devices such as lasers, photodetectors, and solar cells. Several different fundamental mechanisms are known. In this Brief Report we propose another possible relaxation mechanism which is based on the interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) mechanism first predicted by Cederbaum and his coworkers in 1997 and has been recently observed in atomic van der Waals and in hydrogen-bonded molecular clusters. We show that the electron relaxation in a quantum dot dimer due to the ICD mechanism is on a picoseconds timescale. This mechanism enables us to design IR photodetectors which are extremely efficient for ultraweak radiation with a specific wavelength.