  The effect of Rashba spin-orbit interaction and anisotropic strain on the
electronic, optical and thermodynamic properties of artificial graphene-like
superlattice composed of InAs-GaAs quantum dots has been considered
theoretically. The electronic energy dispersions have been obtained using
Green's function formalism in combination with Fourier transformation to the
reciprocal space and an exact diagonalization technique. We have observed a
splitting of Dirac points and appearance of edditional Dirac-like points due to
the Rashba spin-orbit interaction. Breaking of the hexagonal symmetry of the
dispersion surfaces caused by the strain anisotropy is observed as well. It is
shown that both the spin-orbit interaction and strain anisotropy have a
qualitative impact on the measurable characteristics of the considered
structure and can be used as effective tools to control the performance of
devices based on artificial graphene.
