The investigators have undertaken several efforts underlying the enhancement of the performance of Ill-nitride and related wuertzite quantum-dot-based optoelectronic devices. These include: carrier scattering by optical phonons; spontaneous polarization in wuertzite; the use of colloidal quantum dots as optoelectronic elements; strain- and confinement-induced shifts in the phonon frequencies in GaN quantum dots; two-phonon processes in photon absorption; phonon effects on carrier transport in nanowires, including wurtzite-based nanowires; and the design ...