509026 - QUANTUM NANOSTRUCTURES

The course aims at delivering basic conceptual knowledge about the physics of nanostructured systems for the quantum confinement of electrons and holes in solids, which are crucially relevant to the current development of a number of quantum technologies. Specific attention will be devoted to optical and transport properties in either semiconductor or superconductor low dimensional systems, obtained by exploiting modern epitaxial growth and nanofabrication techniques. Moreover, the course aims at giving a broad overview about the recent applications of nanostructured devices in modern quantum technologies, such as sources of quantum states of light, single-electron transistors, and the definition of qubits. The targeted objectives can be summarized as follows: 1 – learning the main semiconductor and superconductor materials growth and nanofabrication technologies; acquiring basic theoretical knowledge of the effects of reduced dimensionality on optical and transport properties; understanding the main theoretical and experimental tools characterizing the physics of these quantum nanostructures; 2 – applications of the concepts acquired, e.g. to the problem solving on targeted questions in the physics of quantum nanostructures; comparing the different nanostructures based on their qualitative optical and transport behaviors; 3 – being able to read, learn and communicate the results of recent scientific papers. At the end of the course, a ‘suggested reading’ session is devoted to students’ presentations about one or more recent research papers, chosen among a few proposed and dealing with the recent developments in the physics of nanostructures.