Ab initio calculations for the electronic properties of III-V semiconductor nanowires

The electronics industry is pushing the size of traditional semiconductor-based devices towards their physical limits, i.e., the miniaturization of devices, which is needed for increasing the efficiency, is restricted by the fundamental limitations of current lithography techniques. In contrast, the use of nanoscale structures as basic units for constructing electronic devices can potentially overcome such limitation. As building blocks for devices, semiconductor nanowires have created great interest in recent years. Here we will present results of an \textit{ab initio} study of the electronic properties of semiconductor nanowires of III-V materials. We have performed calculations using a real-space pseudopotential approach for these systems. We will discuss the role of quantum confinement on the electronic properties of such materials by comparisons to quantum dots and experiment