Electronic phase diagrams of carriers in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots: violation of Hund's rule and the Aufbau principle for holes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the electronic and hole charging behaviors in InAs/GaAs quantum dots, revealing that holes violate Hund's rule and the Aufbau principle, unlike electrons, which follow these rules, providing new insights into quantum dot charge configurations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that hole charging in quantum dots violates Hund's rule and the Aufbau principle, a novel finding supported by theoretical calculations.

Findings

Electrons follow Hund's rule and the Aufbau principle during charging.

Holes exhibit a non-trivial charging pattern violating these principles.

The results align with recent experimental observations.

Abstract

We study the orbital and spin configurations of up to six electrons or holes charged into self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots via single-particle pseudopotential and many-particle configuration interaction method. We find that while the charging of {\it electrons} follows both Hund's rule and the Aufbau principle, the charging of {\it holes} follows a non-trivial charging pattern which violates both the Aufbau principle and Hund's rule, and is robust against the details of the quantum dot size. The predicted hole charging sequence offers a new interpretation of recent charging experiments.