Current transport through stacked InAs quantum dots embedded in a schottky barrier

We have investigated the transport properties of a metal-semiconductor-metal structure containing multi-layers of InAs quantum dots from 77 K to room temperature. Three distinct phenomena are observed in the current-voltage(I-V) curves: the hysteresis loops, current jumps and voltage offsets. Because of the coupling between the multi-layered quantum dots, the devices made of these quantum dots exhibit much more complicated phenomenon than the devices containing single-layer quantum dots. The devices may undergo many metastable states and relaxation processes. These processes would induce current jump structures and noise in the I-V curve.