Optical properties of highly ordered AlN nanowire arrays grown on sapphire substrate

Highly ordered AlN nanowire arrays were synthesized via a simple physical vapor deposition method on sapphire substrate. The nanowires have an extremely sharp tip < 10 nm, with the average length around 3 mu m. Raman spectroscopy analysis on the AlN nanowire arrays revealed that the lifetime of the phonons is shorter than that in bulk AlN. The transmission spectra of the AlN nanowires showed a blueshift similar to 0.27 eV at the absorption edge with that of the bulk AlN, which is closely related to the small size of the nanowires. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Structural, photoluminescence, and field emission properties of vertically well-aligned ZnO nanorod arrays

The self-assembled growth of vertically well-aligned ZnO nanorod arrays with uniform length and diameter on Si substrate has been demonstrated via thermal evaporation and vapor-phase transport. The structural, photoluminescence (PL), and field emission properties of the as-prepared nanorod arrays were investigated. The PL spectrum at 10 K shows a strong and sharp near-band gap emission (NBE) peak ( full width at half-maximum (FWHM) = 4.7 meV) and a weak neglectable deep-level emission (DL) peak (I-NBE/I-DL= 220), which implies its good crystallinity and high optical quality. The room-temperature NBE peak was deduced to the composition of free exciton and its first-order replicas emissions by temperature-dependent PL spectra. The field emission measurements indicate that, with a vacuum gap of 400 Am, the turn-on field and threshold field is as low as 2.3 and 4.2 V/mu m. The field enhancement factor beta and vacuum gap d follows a universal equation.

Enhanced infrared absorption of spatially ordered quantum dot arrays

We have investigated the intersubband absorption for spatially ordered and non-ordered quantum dots (QDs). It is found that the intersubband absorption of spatially ordered QDs is much stronger than that of non-ordered QDs. The enhanced absorption is attributed to the improved size uniformity concurrent with the spatial ordering for the growth condition employed. For the FTIR measurement under normal incidence geometry, using a undoped sample as reference can remove the interference effect due to multiple reflections. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Self-organized hexagonal ordering of quantum dot arrays

We report a structure of (In, Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots which are vertically correlated and laterally aligned in a hexagonal way thus forming three-dimensionally ordered arrays. The growth pathway is based on a mechanism of self-assembly by strain-mediated multilayer vertical stacking on a planar GaAs(100) substrate, rather than molecular-beam epitaxy on a prepatterned substrate. The strain energy of lateral island-island interaction is minimum for the arrangement of hexagonal ordering. However, realization of hexagonal ordering not only depends on a complicated trade-off between lateral and vertical island-island interaction but is also related to a delicate and narrow growth kinetics window.

Molecular beam epitaxy InAs dot arrays on InGaAs/GaAs

Periodical alignment of the InAs dots along the < 100 > and < 110 > directions was observed on an elastically relaxed InGaAs buffer layer grown at 500 and 450 degrees C, respectively, on the vicinal GaAs(001) substrate. Due to alignment along these directions, the InAs dots were arranged into a quasi-two-dimensional hexagonal lattice. Such a periodical arrangement of InAs dots may be explained in terms of modulation in strain as well as composition along [110] as observed by using cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy.

Synthesis and photoluminescence properties of vertically aligned ZnO nanorod-nanowall junction arrays on a ZnO-coated silicon substrate

Arrays of vertically well-aligned ZnO nanorod-nanowall junctions have been synthesized on an undoped ZnO-coated silicon substrate by a carbothermal reduction and vapour phase transport method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) show that the nanostructures are well-oriented with the c-axis perpendicular to the substrate. The room temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of the as-prepared ZnO nanostructure reveals a dominant near-band-edge (NBE) emission peak and a weak deep level (DL) emission, which demonstrates its good optical properties. Temperature-dependent PL spectra show that both the intensity of NBE and DL emissions increased with decreasing temperature. The NBE emission at 3.27 eV is identified to originate from the radiative free exciton recombination. The possible growth mechanism of ZnO nanorod-nanowall junctions is also proposed.

Atomic hydrogen induced step bunching and fabrication of quantum wire arrays on GaAs (311)A substrate by molecular beam epitaxy

Atomic hydrogen assisted molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is a novel type of epitaxial growth of nanostructures. The GaAs (311)A surface naturally forms one-dimensional step arrays by step bunching along the direction of (-233) and the space period is around 40nm. The step arrays extend over several mum without displacement. The InGaAs quantum wire arrays are grown on the step arrays as the basis. Our results may prompt further development of more uniform quantum wire and quantum dot arrays.

Symmetry in the diagonal self-assembled InAs quantum wire arrays on InP substrate

Diagonal self-assembled InAs quantum wire (QWR) arrays with the stacked InAs/In0.52Al0.48As structure are grown on InP substrates, which are (001)-oriented and misoriented by 6degrees towards the [100] direction. Both the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and migration enhanced epitaxy (MEE) techniques are employed. Transmission electron microscopy reveals that whether a diagonal InAs QWR array of the stacked InAs/InAlAs is symmetrical about the growth direction or not depends on the growth method as well as substrate orientation. Asymmetry in the diagonal MEE-grown InAs QWR array can be ascribed to the influence of surface reconstruction on upward migration of adatoms during the self-assembly of the InAs quantum wires.

Origin of the vertical-anticorrelation arrays of InAs/InAlAs nanowires with a fixed layer-ordering orientation

InAs/In0.52Al0.48As nanowire multilayer arrays were grown on (001) InP substrate by molecular-beam epitaxy. The structural property of the arrays was investigated by transmission electron microscopy. The results clearly showed the formation of InAs nanowires, evolution of InAs/InAlAs interface, and composition and thickness modulations in the InAlAs spacer layer. A fixed spatial ordering of InAs/InAlAs nanowires was revealed for all the samples. Regardless of the change in InAlAs spacer thickness of different samples, (i) the nanowires of one InAs layer are positioned above the nanowire spacing in the previous InAs layer and (ii) the layer-ordering orientation angle of nanowires is fixed. The results were explained from the viewpoint of the growth kinetics. The effect of InAlAs spacers is suggested to play an important role on the spatial ordering of the nanowire arrays. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Analysis of leakage current in GaAs micro-solar cell arrays

The output characteristics of micro-solar cell arrays are analyzed on the basis of a modified model in which the shunt resistance between cell lines results in current leakage. The modification mainly consists of adding a shunt resistor network to the traditional model. The obtained results agree well with the reported experimental results. The calculation results demonstrate that leakage current in substrate affects seriously the performance of GaAs micro- solar cell arrays. The performance of arrays can be improved by reducing the number of cells per line. In addition, at a certain level of integration, an appropriate space occupancy rate of the single cell is recommended for ensuring high open circuit voltages, and it is more appropriate to set the rates at 80%-90% through the calculation.

Picosecond ultra-wideband short pulse radiated by antenna arrays

This report presents the experiments to study the characteristics of the picosecond ultra-wideband pulses coherent radiation. The testing involves bow-tie horn antennas for both the transninting and receiving antenna. Sixteen channels of electrical pulses with 290 ps duration and jitter < 30 ps have been used. The antenna arrays with various frames of 4 x 1, 4 x 2, 4 x 3, 4 x 4 are employed to radiate the pulses. The receiving antenna measures the electrical field in different distance front the transmitting antennas arrant The results show that if the pulses are in coherent condition, the peak power pulse of output by antennas array with N elements are N-2 of that of the single element antenna. (c) 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Fabrication of Silicon-Based Template-Assisted Nanoelectrode Arrays and Ohmic Contact Properties Investigation

A convenient fabrication technology for large-area, highly-ordered nanoelectrode arrays on silicon substrate has been described here, using porous anodic alumina (PAA) as a template. The ultrathin PAA membranes were anodic oxidized utilizing a two-step anodization method, from Al film evaporated on substrate. The purposes for the use of two-step anodization were, first, improving the regularity of the porous structures, and second reducing the thickness of the membranes to 100 similar to 200 nm we desired. Then the nanoelectrode arrays were obtained by electroless depositing Ni-W alloy into the through pores of PAA membranes, making the alloy isolated by the insulating pore walls and contacting with the silicon substrates at the bottoms of pores. The Ni-W alloy was also electroless deposited at the back surface of silicon to form back electrode. Then ohmic contact properties between silicon and Ni-W alloy were investigated after rapid thermal annealing. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations showed the structure characteristics, and the influence factors of fabrication effect were discussed. The current voltage (I-V) curves revealed the contact properties. After annealing in N-2 at 700 degrees C, good linear property was shown with contact resistance of 33 Omega, which confirmed ohmic contacts between silicon and electrodes. These results presented significant application potential of this technology in nanosize current-injection devices in optoelectronics, microelectronics and bio-medical fields.

Mechanisms of optical confinement in phase-locked laser arrays

The nature of optical confinement in phase-locked laser arrays (PLLAs) with a mesa-stripe structure (MSS) has been studied. Two main mechanisms are distinguished, which are based on the variation of the waveguide effective refractive index due to MSS formation and on the refractive index modulation induced by the heating of the structure. Stable operation was achieved when either weak or strong optical coupling was realized in the PLLA. A phase-locked regime of radiation was obtained only for laser diodes with strong optical coupling. In the latter case the angle divergency was not greater than 2 degrees for the antisymmetric supermode emission from the PLLA.