Semiconductor quantum dots are essential building blocks of spintronics and photonics devices. For example, the spin of a carrier trapped in a quantum dot can be manipulated in order to store or process information (quantum bit), the recombination of electron-hole pairs can provide triggered sources of single photons, or the interaction between carriers and magnetic atoms introduced in the dot can be exploited to make a spin memory. Fundamental researches are now focused on quantum dots embedded in nanowires. In these versatile systems, the diameter and the length of the dots can be tailored during the growth of the nanowire (see, e.g., http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/chapterhtml/2014/bk9781849738156-00001?isbn=978-1-84973-815-6).

The aim of this PhD is to control the nature of the hole states ("light"/"heavy" hole), which determines the electronic and optical properties of the dots (in particular, the way the spin of the holes can be manipulated). For that purpose, we shall play on the geometry of the dots (diameter/length ratio), and on structural strains (compressive/tensile strains in the dot). The candidate will do both modelling of the electronic and optical properties of these dots with atomistic simulation tools developed at CEA/INAC, and magneto-optical spectroscopy experiments at Institut Néel.

This 3 years PhD project is funded by the "ESPADON" project of the French National Research Agency (ANR), which gathers labs from Grenoble and Paris around this topic.