Tunnelling current and emission spectrum of a single electron transistor under optical pumping

David M. -T. Kuo, Yia-Chung Chang

Published 2005-06-01Version 1

Theoretical studies of the tunnelling current and emission spectrum of a single electron transistor (SET) under optical pumping are presented. The calculation is performed via Keldysh Green's function method within the Anderson model with two energy levels. It is found that holes in the quantum dot (QD) created by optical pumping lead to new channels for the electron tunnelling from emitter to collector. As a consequence, an electron can tunnel through the QD via additional channels, characterized by the exciton, trion and biexciton states. It is found that the tunnelling current as a function of the gate voltage displays a series of sharp peaks and the spacing between these peaks can be used to determine the exciton binding energy as well as the electron-electron Coulomb repulsion energy. In addition, we show that the single-photon emission associated with the electron-hole recombination in the exciton complexes formed in the QD can be controlled both electrically and optically.