Magnetic Semiconductor Heterostructures and Nanostructures

Presented by Prof. Paul Crowell, University of Minnesota

Using modern growth techniques, it is possible to fabricate semiconductor systems which are very good approximations to the "textbook" examples of first-semester quantum mechanics. Confinement in one spatial dimension is realized in quantum wells while higher degrees of confinement can be achieved in quantum ``wires'' or ``dots''. I will talk about some experiments in which electrons and holes are confined to quantum wells or dots in which magnetic ions have been substituted in a II-VI semiconductor alloy. It is possible to couple optically to the spin of the confined carriers, thus probing the magnetism of these low-dimensional systems, which can be strongly spin-polarized.