Multistable quantum systems: Information processing at microscopic levels

We demonstrate that solid-state material when microstructured on a nanometer scale leads not only to discrete electronic energy levels but to selective coupling of the electronic states via local operators due to acoustic-phonon or dipole interaction. As a result the system can be designed to allow for multistable dissipative quantum dynamics realized by only a few electronic degrees of freedom. Our model sheds some new light on the problem of fundamental constraints on information processing systems.