Including strain in atomistic tight-binding Hamiltonians: An application to self-assembled InAs/GaAs and InAs/InP quantum dots

A method for inclusion of strain into the tight-binding Hamiltonian is presented. This approach bridges from bulk strain to the atomistic language of bond lengths and angles, and features a diagonal parameters shift in a form suitable for atomistic calculation of million atom nanosystems with a small number of empirical parameters. I illustrate this method by calculating electronic and optical properties of self-assembled InAs/(InP,GaAs) lens-shaped quantum dots. A very different structure of confined quantum dots states is shown, depending on the matrix material and inclusion of strain effects. Results are compared with the well-established empirical pseudopotential method, and reasonable agreement is found.