Transport and capacitance spectroscopy of quantum dots

A review of recent theoretical studies on a single-electron tunneling in qu antum dots is presented. This effect underlies the transport spectroscopy p erformed on the vertical gated quantum dots and the capacitance spectroscop y on the self-assembled quantum dots. The conditions of the single-electron tunneling are formulated in terms of electrochemical potentials of the ele ctrons in the leads and in the quantum dot. The electrochemical potentials for the electrons confined in the quantum dots can be calculated by solving the many-electron Schrodinger equation. The results obtained by the Hartre e-Fock method are presented. For the vertical gated quantum dot, the realis tic confinement potential is obtained from the Poisson equation. The applic ation of the self-consistent procedure to the solution of the Poisson-Schro dinger problem is discussed. The calculated positions of the current peaks at zero bias and boundaries of the Coulomb diamonds for non-zero bias are i n good agreement with experiment. The influence of an external magnetic fie ld on the single-electron tunneling is also discussed. The spin-orbital con figurations of the electrons confined in the quantum dots change with the m agnetic field, which leads to features observed in the current-voltage and capacitance-voltage characteristics.