Artificial Atoms: New Boxes for Electrons

Just as atoms are natural boxes that contain electrons, quantum dots--small structures in which electrons can be trapped--can be studied as artificial atoms. In his Perspective, McEuen discusses results reported in the same issue on new studies of artificial atoms. Kouwenhoven et al. studied the magnetic field dependence of energy levels in a quantum dot. Stewart et al. report studies of irregularly shaped dots containing many electrons, analogous to transuranic elements. Finally, Schedelbeck et al. report experiments in which two quantum dots were coupled together to form artificial molecules.