AbstractThe mechanisms determining emission of holes in self‐assembled Ge quantum dots (QDs) embedded in the p‐type Si matrix have been investigated. Specimens were prepared by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). Electrical methods such as deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and capacitance versus voltage (C‐V) measurements were used for the study. The emission mechanisms were identified by measuring a QD‐related signal as a function of the repetition frequency of the filling pulses with the reverse voltage and the pulse voltage as a parameter. An observed shift of the signal position or its absence versus the voltage parameters was interpreted in terms of thermal, tunnelling and mixed processes and attributed to the presence of a Coulomb barrier formed as a result of the charging effect. Thermal emission properties of the QDs were characterized under such measurement conditions that tunnelling contributions to the DLTS spectra could be neglected (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)