We investigate the carrier dynamics in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dot
s under strictly resonant excitation of the ground state. The spectral sele
ctivity of the resonant excitation allows to study the physical properties
of a class of dots characterized by an energy distribution comparable to th
e excitation laser spectrum. We detect no Stokes shift of the photoluminesc
ence (PL) line. The PL decay time yields a straightforward determination of
the radiative recombination time, tau(rad) similar to 650 ps. Finally we m
easure a very short rise time (< 1 ps) of the dots ground state PL after a
resonant excitation of the first excited state, which indicates an extremel
y fast intra-dot energy relaxation.