Researchers at the University of Innsbruck, along with those at Dortmund, Bayreuth, and Linz universities, have demonstrated a new method that can help control dark excitons in semiconductor quantum dots and generate quantum entanglement, a press release said.
Excitons are quasiparticles that form in solid materials as a result of an electron jumping to a higher energy state. When a photon excites an electron in a material, it jumps from a lower energy level to a higher energy level band but leaving a hole in the lower energy level band.
The electron and the hole have opposite charges and are attracted to each other by Coulombic forces, leading to the formation of a bound state, where the electron and the hole orbit one another. Physicists refer to this as an exciton.
Excitons do not carry a net charge since their opposite charges cancel each other. Thus, these quaisparticles cannot help conduct electricity. However, they are capable of carrying energy through the material. Researchers are keen to use these properties to store and control quantum states
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