Quantum dots

During the past few years, research in semiconductors has taken on, quite literally, new dimensions. Their numbers are two, one and zero. Electrons in recently developed devices can be confined to planes, lines or mathematical points-quantum dots. Microchip manufacturers have developed a toolbox of nanofabrication technologies capable of creating structures almost atom by atom. These techniques have opened up a new realm of fundamental physics and chemistry as workers make and study artificial analogues of atoms, molecules and crystals. Experimenters are no longer limited by the atomic shapes, sizes and charge distributions available in nature