Theory of electronic transport in semiconductor nanostructures.

We review the orthodox theory of single charge tunneling in a semiconductor quantum dot and we extend it to treat both single electron and hole charging effects. We analyze recent tunneling spectroscopy experiments. We show that for sufficiently large bias voltages V, both electrons and holes can tunnel into the quantum dot, leading to specific features in the I(V) curve. We present detailed simulations of the I(V) curves based a tight binding method for the electronic structure. A very good agreement is obtained with available experiments on InAs nanocrystals, allowing a complete interpretation of the spectra. Finally, we make some predictions concerning Si nanocrystals.