Alex Harvey with Harsh Mathur

Quantum Dots in a Strong Magnetic Field – Charging Energy of a Quantum Dot in the Thomas-Fermi Approximation

Quantum dots are nanometer scale semiconductor structures.  Their small size leads to unique behavior different from that of macroscopic semiconductors.  Our objective is to generalize the Thomas-Fermi method of atomic physics to understand the electronic structure of quantum dots in a strong magnetic field and to analyze the quantum dynamics of electrons. Although the method was originally devised to study the static ground state density of atoms at zero magnetic field, it has been generalized to study the dynamics and high magnetic field behavior of atoms. We will
make the extension to quantum dots using both analytic and numerical methods.