Electronic structure of ultrasmall quantum-well boxes

The electronic structure of interacting, few-electron systems confined in quasi-zero-dimensional, ultrasmall, quantum-well boxes has been calculated by use of the multielectron effective-mass Schr\"odinger equation. The configuration interaction method is used to include electron correlation. Correlation effects are dominant in large boxes; the electrons form a Wigner lattice. In smaller boxes subband spacing becomes dominant and the carriers become frozen in the lowest subbands. The calculations determine how and on what size scale this transition occurs.