Abstract

With today’s highly sophisticated submicron lithography it has become possible to prepare, starting from two-dimensional electron systems (2DES) in layered semiconductor structures with quantized energy levels in the z direction, very small lateral structures with additional quantum confinement in the x and (or) y direction. The ultimate limit of quantum confinement is a quantum dot, an artificial “atom” that contains a very small number of electrons on discrete energy levels. Typical quantization energies are thousand electron volts (meV). “Antidots,” a reversed structure with respect to dots, are where “holes” are “punched” into a 2DES.

© 1992 Optical Society of America