Energies and densities of electrons confined in elliptical and ellipsoidal quantum dots

Abstract

We consider a droplet of electrons confined within an external harmonic potential well of elliptical or ellipsoidal shape, a geometry commonly encountered in work with semiconductor quantum dots and other nanoscale or mesoscale structures. For droplet sizes exceeding the effective Bohr radius, the dominant contribution to average system parameters in the Thomas–Fermi approximation comes from the potential energy terms, which allows us to derive expressions describing the electron droplet’s shape and dimensions, its density, total and capacitive energy, and chemical potential. The analytical results are in very good agreement with experimental data and numerical calculations, and make it possible to follow the dependence of the properties of the system on its parameters (the total number of electrons, the axial ratios and curvatures of the confinement potential, and the dielectric constant of the material). An interesting feature is that the eccentricity of the electron droplet is not the same as that of its confining potential well.