  A detailed analysis of the electro-optical response of single as well as
coupled semiconductor quantum dots is presented. This is based on a realistic
---i.e., fully tridimensional--- description of Coulomb-correlated few-electron
states, obtained via a direct-diagonalization approach. More specifically, we
investigate the combined effect of static electric fields and ultrafast
sequences of multicolor laser pulses in the few-carrier, i.e., low-excitation,
regime. In particular, we show how the presence of a properly tailored static
field may give rise to significant electron-hole charge separation; these
field-induced dipoles, in turn, may introduce relevant exciton-exciton
couplings, which are found to induce significant ---both intra- and
inter-dot--- biexcitonic splittings. We finally show that such few-exciton
systems constitute an ideal semiconductor-based hardware for an all optical
implementation of quantum information processing.
