Enhancement of Coulomb interactions in semiconductor nanostructures by dielectric confinement

We present a theoretical analysis of the effect of dielectric confinement on the Coulomb interaction in dielectrically modulated quantum structures. We discuss the implications of the strong enhancement of the electron-hole and electron-electron coupling for two specific examples: (i) GaAs-based quantum wires with remote oxide barriers, where combined quantum and dielectric confinements are predicted to lead to room temperature exciton binding, and (ii) semiconductor quantum dots in colloidal environments, when the addition spectra are predicted to depend on the dielectric mismatch. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.