The ground states of artificial molecules made of two vertically coupled quantum rings are studied within the spin density functional theory for systems containing up to 13 electrons. Quantum tunneling effects on the electronic structure of the coupled rings are analyzed. For small ring radius, our results recover those of coupled quantum dots. For intermediate and large ring radii, new phases are found showing the formation of new diatomic artificial ring molecules. Our results also show that the tunneling-induced phase transitions in the coupled rings occur at much smaller tunneling energy as compared to those for coupled quantum dot systems.

• Received 15 June 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.74.045313