Atomistic description of the electronic structure of T-shaped quantum wires

We use an atomistic tight-binding theory to study arrays of T-shaped GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wires. An atomistic approach allows us to provide a theory of the electron and hole states in T shaped wires without the approximations that limit effective mass models. We calculate the band structure of electron and holes in periodic T-wire arrays and in arm wells and compare with the results of effective mass theory. We determine the dispersion of single-particle states in a T-wire array and compare energies for arm-well and T-wire states. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.