Electron spin dynamics in quantum dots and related nanostructures due to hyperfine interaction with nuclei

We review and summarize recent theoretical and experimental work on electron spin dynamics in quantum dots and related nanostructures due to hyperfine interaction with surrounding nuclear spins. This topic is of particular interest with respect to several proposals for quantum information processing in solid state systems. Specifically, we investigate the hyperfine interaction of an electron spin confined in a quantum dot in an s-type conduction band with the nuclear spins in the dot. This interaction is proportional to the square modulus of the electron wavefunction at the location of each nucleus leading to an inhomogeneous coupling, i.e. nuclei in different locations are coupled with different strengths. In the case of an initially fully polarized nuclear spin system an exact analytical solution for the spin dynamics can be found. For not completely polarized nuclei, approximation-free results can only be obtained numerically in sufficiently small systems. We compare these exact results with findings from several approximation strategies. (topical review)