A spin-density-functional study of quantum dots and rings

Abstract We present a spin-density-functional theoretical (SDFT) study of the electronic states in GaAs quantum dots embedded in AlGaAs substrates. The SDFT allows for a systematic study of the joint effects of confinement, Coulomb interactions and spin for realistic systems. We model the system as electrons confined in a finite cylindrical dot. The screening due to the gate electrodes is also taken into account. The method predicts the electron addition energy spectra that are in agreement with experiments. We also apply the SDFT to GaAs quantum rings and find that they too show shell structures in the additional energy spectra.