Magneto-Tunnelling Spectroscopy for Spatial Mapping of Orbital Wavefunctions of the Ground and Excited Electronic States in Self-Assembled Quantum Dots

Abstract

We present an experimental study of electron wavefunctions in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots (QDs). Magneto-tunnelling spectroscopy is employed as a non-invasive probe to produce two-dimensional images of the probability density of an electron confined in a quantum dot. The images reveal clearly the elliptical symmetry of the ground state and the characteristic lobes of the higher energy states of the dots. We use the technique to compare the symmetry properties of the electron wavefunctions in QDs grown on (100)- and (311)B-oriented GaAs substrates.