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Nature Physics 5, 173–174 (1 March 2009) | doi:10.1038/nphys1215

Quantum dots: Driven to perfection

Charles Santori & Yoshihisa Yamamoto

At low enough temperatures, quantum dots in semiconductors can have sharp optical transitions, similar to those of atoms. In recent years there has been intense interest in demonstrating various coherent optical control techniques in these 'artificial atoms' for applications in quantum communication, quantum computation and nonlinear optics at low light levels.