Tunneling transport and diffusion in weakly coupled quantum dot ensembles

The lateral tunneling rate and carrier diffusion in weakly coupled quantum dots are analyzed. In the weak coupling limit, localization of charge withi n a single dot is obtained through superposition of the lowest-energy eigen states of coupled dots. The free evolution of the wave function leads to tu nneling, but with a time dependence that includes dephasing. Idealized quan tum dot boundary conditions are used to estimate tunneling times, and these are compared with recent experiments. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physi cs. [S0003-6951(98)00850-X].