Optical properties of acceptor–exciton complexes in ZnO/SiO2 quantum dots

The binding energy Eb of the acceptor–exciton complex (A−,X) as a function of the radius (or of the impurity position of the acceptor) and the normalized oscillator strength of (A−,X) in spherical ZnO quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a SiO2 matrix are calculated using the effective-mass approximation under the diagonalzation matrix technique, including a three-dimensional confinement of the carrier in the QD and assuming a finite depth. Numerical results show that the binding energy of the acceptor–exciton complexes is particularly robust when the impurity position of the acceptor is in the center of the ZnO QDs. It has been clearly shown from our calculations that these physical parameters are very sensitive to the quantum dot size and to the impurity position. These results could be particularly helpful, since they are closely related to experiments performed on such nanoparticles. This may allow us to improve the stability and efficiency of the semiconductor quantum dot luminescence which is considered critical.