Elastic strain changes the energies of the conduction band in a
semiconductor, which will affect transport through a semiconductor
nanostructure. We show that the typical strains in a semiconductor
nanostructure from metal gates are large enough to create strain-induced
quantum dots (QDs). We simulate a commonly used QD device architecture, metal
gates on bulk silicon, and show the formation of strain-induced QDs. The
strain-induced QD can be eliminated by replacing the metal gates with
poly-silicon gates. Thus strain can be as important as electrostatics to QD
device operation operation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, plus supplementary informatio
