Semiconductor Quantum Dots: Potential Applications in Photonic Switching

Three-dimensionally-confined semiconductors (quantum dots, QD) have enormous potential in the fields of optoelectronics, and linear and nonlinear optics. Ideal QD would have optical nonlinearities larger, though not by orders of magnitude, than materials with confinement in fewer dimensions, mainly due to isolation of absorption resonances. QD lasers are predicted to have ultralow threshold currents in the muA range, providing broad applications in long distance and chip-to-chip communication. QD switches and detectors could utilize intersubband transitions in any geometry.