Atomically sharp, crystal phase defined GaAs quantum dots

Crystal phase defined heterostructures, or polytype heterostructures, are atomically sharp with no intermixing, which makes them ideal contenders for a wide number of applications. Although polytype quantum dots have shown promising results as single photon sources, a high degree of control on the dimensions and number of polytype quantum dots is necessary before any application can be developed.In this work we show results from optical characterization of highly controlled wz-zb GaAs quantum dots with sharp photoluminescence signal and a strong indication of 0D density of states. One band effective mass calculations show good agreement with the measured data. Radially confined nanowires with a single wz-zb GaAs interface also show sharp photoluminescence signal and a 0D density of states. This indicates the existence of quantum dot like states in the triangular wells formed at the wz-zb GaAs interface. These results show the potential of polytype quantum dots for physics and optics applications