Quantum dots

When I went through the Interview on Quantum dots, programmable matter, and Wellstone (with Author Wil McCarthy by Rocky Rawstern Editor Nanotechnology Now - June 2003) I understood the intricacies of quantum dots with much of clarity and inquest.In the interview when questioned about the quantum dots McCarthy answers as follows

“Can you give our readers a brief explanation of "artificial atoms" and "quantum dots," and how they - when produced en mass - can create "programmable matter"?
A quantum dot is a device which traps electrons in a very small region of space, forcing them to behave like tiny standing waves, just as they do in atoms. An "artificial atom" is a cloud of electrons trapped in this way. Although it has no nucleus of its own, the artificial atom behaves in many ways like a real atom does. Producing large numbers of artificial atoms inside a bulk material, such as a semiconductor, will alter its properties dramatically so that, for example, it can be made to appear and behave like a metal, or an insulator. The material's color, transparency, reflectance, thermal and magnetic properties can also be altered, in real time.”

To go still more I browsed through the internet and could find many more interesting definitions and dimensions in context to quantum dots. From a very basic understanding to applications I would like to share some essences of my reading as well given the concerned urls for your further reading let me start to go further into the basics of quantum dots

“Quantum dots are small devices that contain a tiny droplet of free electrons. They are fabricated in semiconductor materials and have typical dimensions between nanometers to a few microns. The size and shape of these structures and therefore the number of electrons they contain, can be precisely controlled; a quantum dot can have anything from a single electron to a collection of several thousands. The physics of quantum dots shows many parallels with the behavior of naturally occurring quantum systems in atomic and nuclear physics. As in an atom, the energy levels in a quantum dot become quantized due to the confinement of electrons. Unlike atoms however, quantum dots can be easily connected to electrodes and are therefore excellent tools to study atomic-like properties. There is a wealth of interesting phenomena that have been measured in quantum dot structures over the past decade. This page shows a few examples from our group. The next blog will first discuss briefly the parallels between atoms and quantum dots.