Int. J. Nanotechnology, Vol. 2, No. 3, 2005 271 Copyright © 2005 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. STREL: a versatile computational environment for the study and design of nanostructures N. Skoulidis* and H.M. Polatoglou Department of Physics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece E-mail: nskoulid@auth.gr E-mail: hariton@auth.gr *Corresponding author Abstract: Fabrication techniques have advanced greatly and many nanostructures have been produced, studied and have found technological application. The study of the nanostructures, both experimentally and theoretically is very demanding, as many degrees of freedom are important in determining their properties. In order to meet these complex tasks, we have prepared a computational environment to facilitate the study of the structural, electronic and optical properties of nanostructures. In this environment, it is possible to tailor the properties of specific nanostructures. Keywords: Si capped Ge quantum dots; nanostructure creation; quantum dots optical properties; computational environment Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Skoulidis, N. and Polatoglou, H.M. (2005) ‘STREL: a versatile computational environment for the study and design of nanostructures’, Int. J. Nanotechnology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.271–279. Biographical notes: Nikos Skoulidis studied Physics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received his master degree in Electronics at the same university. He worked for more than a decade as customer engineer in Hewlett Packard, supporting Unix systems. Now he is a PhD candidate and his research is focused on studying structural and optical properties of nanostructures. Hariton M. Polatoglou studied Physics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He received his master degree in Electronics and a PhD on theoretical Solid State Physics at the same university. Postdoctoral studies at the Festkörper Forschung Institut Stuttgart, Fritz-Haber Institut Berlin, Materials Department Oxford and Chemistry Department Cambridge. Current research interests include transport properties, structural, electronic and optical properties of nanostructures, defects in GaN and their interactions, thermodynamic properties of alloys, ab-initio total energy calculations, didactics of physics, metrology and quality systems. Now he holds an Associate Professor position at the Physics Department of AUTH. 1 Introduction Over the past years, nanostructures have gained a high interest both scientifically and for technology. The special properties of these structures have propelled research and development. Many such structures have been produced and studied, although a huge