Investigations of InAs surface dots on InP

We have fabricated InAs dots on the surface of InP, determined their structure, and measured the optical transition energy. This energy was found to be in excellent agreement with theoretical calculations, where no free parameters have been used. The calculations were performed using eight-band k center dot p theory in the envelope function approximation. We conclude that this theory is adequate to describe quantum dots also when one of the confining materials is vacuum. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.