Reduced electron relaxation rate in multi-electron quantum dots

Abstract

We use a configuration-interaction approach and Fermi golden rule to investigate electron-phonon interaction in realistic multi-electron quantum dots. Lifetimes are computed in the low-density, highly correlated regime. We report numerical evidence that electron-electron interaction generally leads to reduced decay rates of excited electronic states in weakly confined quantum dots, where carrier relaxation is dominated by the interaction with longitudinal acoustic phonons.

to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett