INFLUENCE OF ELECTRON ELECTRON INTERACTIONS ON THE TRANSFER OF SINGLE ELECTRONS BETWEEN QUANTUM DOTS

Electron-electron interactions are investigated in the context of a two-quantum dot 'capacitor' in order to determine changes in the energy due to the transfer of single electrons between quantum dots. The calculations are performed by a linear combination of atomic orbitals (LCAO) technique with a spherical square well basis. We find that the transfer of just one electron results in substantial changes of both the energy quantization in the dots and the total energy stored in the 'capacitor'. The role of direct and exchange energy interactions is discussed.