Self-assembled quantum dots: A study of strain energy and intersubband transitions

In this article we examine the strain energy and intersubband optical transitions in self-assembled dots on GaAs and InP substrates. On the GaAs substrate, in addition to the InAs/GaAs dots we examine strain compensated InAs/GaAsP dots on GaAs substrates. We find that the strain energy configuration profile shows that there is preference for certain dot sizes and shapes. Our calculated dot sizes agree well with experimental observations. We find that the addition of phosphorus in the covering matrix reduces the total strain energy of the system with little effects on the intersubband transition strength for the vertical incident light. The reduced strain energy should allow one to incorporate a large number of dot array stacks for devices such as lasers and detectors and thus increases the optical responses. Our studies for the InAs/InP system show that due to the lower strain mismatch there is no particular preference for dot sizes. The optical response for intersubband transitions is weaker and occurs at longer wavelengths in comparison to the InAs/GaAs dots.