High-performance computing of electron microstructures

Abstract

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The project was a collaboration between the Quantum Institute at the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) and the Condensed Matter and Statistical Physics Group at LANL. The project objective, which was successfully accomplished, was to model quantum properties of semiconductor nanostructures that were fabricated and measured at UCSB using dedicated molecular-beam epitaxy and free-electron laser facilities. A nonperturbative dynamic quantum theory was developed for systems driven by time-periodic external fields. For such systems, dynamic energy spectra of electrons and photons and their corresponding wave functions were obtained. The results are in good agreement with experimental investigations. The algorithms developed are ideally suited for massively parallel computing facilities and provide a fundamental advance in the ability to predict quantum-well properties and guide their engineering. This is a definite step forward in the development of nonlinear optical devices