Excitons and

Single Electron Tunneling

Excitons
The concept of exciton was first proposed by
Yakov Frenkel in 1931, when he described the
excitation of atoms in a lattice of insulators. He
proposed that this excited state would be able to
travel in a practical like fashion without net
transfer of charge.
An exciton is a bound state of an electron and an
electron hole which are attracted to each other by the
electrostatic columbic force. It is an electrically neutral
quasiparticle that exists in insulators, semiconductors
and in some liquids. The excitation is regarded as an
elementary excitation of condensed matter that can
transport energy without transporting net electric
charge.
An ordinary negative electron and positive
electron, called Positron, situated distance
r apart in a free space experience an
attractive force called coulomb force………
Electron and positron interact to form an atom called
positronium which has bound state energy given by the
Rydberg formula introduce by Niels Bohr in 1913 to
explain the hydrogen atom.
If n=1, the energy is 6.8 eV , which is exactly half the ground
state energy of a hydrogen atom since effective mass of the
bound electron and positron pair is half of that of bound
electron and proton pair in hydrogen atom.
The relative dielectric constant E/E○ has the range of
values 7.2< E/E○ < 17.7

Both of these factors have affect of decreasing the exciton

energy from that of a Positron and as a result energy is
given by
The same two factors also increases the effective bohr radius
of the electron orbit, and it becomes
Using the GaAs electron effective mass and heavy hole effective mass value from the table
E0= 4.6meV
aeff= 11.8nm

E0 is the ground state energy(n=1). This demonstrates that an exciton extends over
Quite a few atoms in lattice.
 Exciton confinement
The exciton radius can be taken as a index of the extent of confinement experienced by the
Nanoparticle. Two limiting region of confinement can be identified on the basis of
the dimension d of the nanoparticle to the excitation radius

d> aeff weak confinenent(unrestricted translation motion)

D< aeff strong confinement(restricted translation motion)
d>> aeff no confinement
Tunneling
For FET type nanostructre the dimension of quantum dot are in the low nanometer range,
And the attached electrodes can have cross-sections comparable in size.For disc and spherical
Shaped dots of radius r the capacitance is given by

From the table we know GaAs the dielectric constant

So the value of C = 1.47*10 -18 r farad for spherical shape, where
R is in nanometers.
The electrostatic energy E of a spherical capacitor of charge Q is change by the amount
∆E ~ eQ/C when a single electon is added or substracted, corresponding to change in potential
∆V=e/C= 0.109/r volts
For nanostructer of radius r=10nm, this gives a change in potential of 11mV which is easily
measurable. It is large enough to impede the tunneling of the next electron.
Two quantum conditions must be satisfied for observation of the discrete nature of
The single electron charge transfer to a quantum dot. One is that the capacitor
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single electron charging energy e/2C must exceed the thermal energy kBT arising from
the random vibrations of the atoms in the solid, and other is the Heisenberg uncertainity
Principle.

∆t = time required for charging the capacitor

Where h/e2 = 25.813 is the quantum of resistance . When these conditions
Are met and the voltage acoss the quantum dot is scanned , then the current
jumps every time voltage change by the same amount of value coming from voltage
difference equation as shown by I V characteristics

This is called coulomb blockade because electros are blocked from tunneling except at the
discrete voltage change positions. The step structure observed on the I V chacteristic is called
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Coulomb staircase because it involves the coulomb charging energy e/2C.