The Coulomb-interaction-induced breaking of the Aufbau principle for hole charging of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates Coulomb interaction-induced violations of the Aufbau principle in hole charging of InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots, revealing complex many-body effects beyond single-particle models.

Contribution

It provides a detailed k-dot-p/configuration-interaction analysis showing how Coulomb interactions cause Aufbau principle violations in multi-hole states.

Findings

Eigenenergies and eigenstates for up to six holes were computed.

Coulomb interactions lead to unexpected orbital occupations.

The violation occurs even within one-particle Kohn-Luttinger states.

Abstract

The so called "incomplete hole shell filling" phenomenon, that is the breaking of the Aufbau principle was reported by D. Reuter et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 026808] in the hole charging spectra of quantum dot when results were interpreted in context of s/p/d shell system - typical for electrons. We report an example of inter-particle-interaction induced Aufbau principle violation even if it is applied to one-particle Kohn-Luttinger eigenstates. We present a k-dot-p/configuration-interaction study that concerns multiple holes confined in InGaAs/GaAs self-assembled cylindrical quantum dot. Eigenenergies and eigenvectors of up to six hole ground states were obtained - along with corresponding one-hole orbital occupations - and discussed in context of the Aufbau principle. PACS numbers: 73.21.La, 81.07.Ta, 71.70.Gm