  A detailed theoretical study of the optical absorption in self-assembled
quantum dots is presented in this paper. A rigorous atomistic strain model as
well as a sophisticated electronic band structure model are used to ensure
accurate prediction of the optical transitions in these devices . The optimized
models presented in this paper are able to reproduce the experimental results
with an error less than 1$\%$. The effects of incident light polarization,
alloy mole fraction, quantum dot dimensions, and doping have been investigated.
The in-plane polarized light absorption is more significant than the
perpendicularly polarized light absorption. Increasing the mole fraction of the
strain controlling layer leads to a lower energy gap and larger absorption
wavelength. Surprisingly, the absorption wavelength is highly sensitive to
changes in the dot diameter, but almost insensitive to changes in the dot
height. This unpredicted behavior is explained by sensitivity analysis of
different factors which affect the optical transition energy.
