Rle Progress Report Electrons Don't Repel? Probing Electron Localization in Quantum Dots

The principle focus of research in our laboratory lies in the study of interacting electronic systems in low dimensional semiconductor structures. Systems in which electrons exist purely in two or one dimensions and even small boxes (quantum dots) containing as few as one electron can now be produced with relative ease. While simple quantum mechanical calculations determine the motion of a single electron in such a confining structures, it is far from simple to understand the behavior of many trapped electrons. Not only do the electrons repel one another, they are indistinguishable. This fact, along with the principle that only one electron can exist in any quantum mechanical orbit, produces unusual and sometimes counterintuitive correlations in the motions of electrons. We use extremely sensitive methods to detect minuscule amounts of electrical charge inside materials. This capability has permitted us to perform some rather unique and fundamental measurements on low dimensional electronic systems.