Quantum Processes in opto-electronic nanomaterials and nanodevices

Artificially tailored semiconducting heterostructures at the nanoscale now form the leading edge of device technology. The design of modern electronic and optoelectronic devices heavily exploits the "band-gap engineering", achieved by confining charge carriers in spatial regions comparable to their de Broglie wavelengths. The resulting wide family of quantum devices spans from semiconductor systems characterized by a genuine quantum-mechanical carrier behavior to low-dimensional nanostructures whose transport dynamics may be safely treated within the semiclassical Boltzmann-transport picture. The design of miniaturized novel architectures requires to understand the quantum phenomena emerging in such electronic devices. Our group has developed microscopic simulation tools to investigate:

• Design and optimization of Quantum cascade Lasers
• TeraHertz detection schemes
• Ultrafast carrier dynamics
• High-field quantum Transport