The interaction between tiny nano-pyramids, so-called self-assembled quantum dots, and a conducting layer – a two-dimensional electron gas – will be the focus of the joint research, entitled “Coupling of single quantum dots to two-dimensional systems”, or QD2D in short. This join research project in funded by the European Commission within the NanoSci-ERA initiative, where a Consortium of 17 national research agencies are involved to promote a European Research Area (ERA). The three-year project has started in September 2009 and will be coordinated by the University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany). Other project partners are the Technical University of Berlin (Germany), the Technical University of Eindhoven (Netherlands) and the Lancaster University (United Kingdom).

The project deals also with the limits of charge-based memories, for instance of Flash memories, where the feature size can be scaled down so that fewer and fewer charge carriers are needed to store one bit of information. The question should be clarified if self-assembled quantum dots can be used in future memories where one bit will be stored by just a single quantum dot. The information of a single quantum dots should then be read-out at room temperature by a nearby two-dimensional electron gas or hole gas.