Spin-orbit interaction and energy states in semiconductor quantum dots

We present a theoretical study of the impact of the spin-orbit interaction on electron energy states in small cylindrical quantum dots. In our calculations, we use the effective one electronic band Hamiltonian and the spin dependent boundary conditions. It has been found that the spin-orbit interaction can modify the energy spectrum of narrow gap semiconductor quantum dots. The modification consists of the energy state spin splitting that strongly depends on the dot size. The spin splitting demonstrates a non-monotonic dependence on the dot size and can provide a situation when only the lower spin split states with angular quantum number \l \ =1 are bound in the dot. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.