Measurement of polar C-plane and nonpolar A-plane InN/ZnO heterojunctions band offsets by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

The valence band offsets of the wurtzite polar C-plane and nonpolar A-plane InN/ZnO heterojunctions are directly determined by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to be 1.76 +/- 0.2 eV and 2.20 +/- 0.2 eV. The heterojunctions form in the type-I straddling configuration with a conduction band offsets of 0.84 +/- 0.2 eV and 0.40 +/- 0.2 eV. The difference of valence band offsets of them mainly attributes to the spontaneous polarization effect. Our results show important face dependence for InN/ZnO heterojunctions, and the valence band offset of A-plane heterojunction is more close to the "intrinsic" valence band offset.

Valence band offset of ZnO/SrTiO3 heterojunction measured by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy has been used to measure the valence band offset (VBO) of the ZnO/SrTiO3 heterojunction. It is found that a type-II band alignment forms at the interface. The VBO and conduction band offset (CBO) are determined to be 0.62 +/- 0.23 and 0.79 +/- 0.23 eV, respectively. The directly obtained VBO value is in good agreement with the result of theoretical calculations based on the interface-induced gap states and the chemical electronegativity theory. Furthermore, the CBO value is also consistent with the electrical transport investigations.

An internally-matched GaN HEMTs device with 45.2 W at 8 GHz for X-band application

Optimized AlGaN/AlN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) with high mobility GaN channel layer structures were grown on 2-in. diameter semi-insulating 6H-SiC substrates by MOCVD. The 2-in. diameter GaN HEMT wafer exhibited a low average sheet resistance of 261.9 Omega/square, with the resistance un-uniformity as low as 2.23%. Atomic force microscopy measurements revealed a smooth AlGaN surface whose root-mean-square roughness is 0.281 nm for a scan area of 5 x 5 mu m. For the single-cell HEMTs device of 2.5-mm gate width fabricated using the materials, a maximum drain current density of 1.31 A/mm, an extrinsic transconductance of 450 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency of 24 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillation 54 GHz were achieved. The four-cell internally-matched GaN HEMTs device with 10-mm total gate width demonstrated a very high output power of 45.2 W at 8 GHz under the condition of continuous-wave (CW), with a power added efficiency of 32.0% and power gain of 6.2 dB. To our best knowledge, the achieved output power of internally-matched devices are the state-of-the-art result ever reported for X-band GaN-based HEMTs. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Photostability of single-photon emission from a single quantum dot in the 650-nm wavelength band at room temperature

The photoluminescence correlation from a single CdSe nanocrystal under pulsed excitation is studied, and a single photon is realized at wavelength 655 nm at room temperature. The single colloidal CdSe quantum dot is prepared on a SiO2/silicon surface by a drop-and-drag technique. The long-term stability of the single-photon source is investigated; it is found that the antibunching effect weakens with excitation time, and the reason for the weakening is attributed to photobleaching. The lifetimes of photoluminescence from a single quantum dot are analyzed at different excitation times. By analyzing the probability distribution of on and off times of photoluminescence, the Auger assisted tunneling and Auger assisted photobleaching models are applied to explain the antibunching phenomenon.

Determination of MgO/AlN heterojunction band offsets by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

MgO is a promising gate dielectric and surface passivation film for GaN/AlGaN transistors, but little is known of the band offsets in the MgO/AlN system. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy was used to measure the energy discontinuity in the valence band (Delta E-v) of MgO/AlN heterostructures. A value of Delta E-v=0.22 +/- 0.08 eV was obtained. Given the experimental band gap of 7.83 eV for MgO, a type-I heterojunction with a conduction band offset of similar to 1.45 eV is found. The accurate determination of the valence and conduction band offsets is important for use of III-N alloys based electronic devices.

Strain relaxation and band-gap tunability in ternary InxGa1-xN nanowires

The alloy formation enthalpy and band structure of InGaN nanowires were studied by a combined approach of the valence-force field model, Monte Carlo simulation, and density-functional theory (DFT). For both random and ground-state structures of the coherent InGaN alloy, the nanowire configuration was found to be more favorable for the strain relaxation than the bulk alloy. We proposed an analytical formula for computing the band gap of any InGaN nanowires based on the results from the screened exchange hybrid DFT calculations, which in turn reveals a better band-gap tunability in ternary InGaN nanowires than the bulk alloy.

Valence band offset of InN/4H-SiC heterojunction measured by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

The valence band offset (VBO) of InN/4H-SiC heterojunction has been directly measured by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The VBO is determined to be 0.55 +/- 0.23 eV and the conduction band offset is deduced to be -2.01 +/- 0.23 eV, indicating that the heterojunction has a type-I band alignment. The accurate determination of the valence and conduction band offsets is important for applications of InN/SiC optoelectronic devices.

Electric field driven quantum phase transition between band insulator and topological insulator

We demonstrate theoretically that electric field can drive a quantum phase transition between band insulator to topological insulator in CdTe/HgCdTe/CdTe quantum wells. The numerical results suggest that the electric field could be used as a switch to turn on or off the topological insulator phase, and temperature can affect significantly the phase diagram for different gate voltage and compositions. Our theoretical results provide us an efficient way to manipulate the quantum phase of HgTe quantum wells.

Effect of metal contact's reflection on the effective coupling coefficient of second-order DFB laser diodes

For a second-order DFB-LD, the presence of a metal contact layer can reduce I-st-order radiation. Part of the reflected power is redistributed into guided modes and results in a variation of the effective coupling coefficient kappa(eff). In this paper, we study the effect of the Au top contact's reflection on the kappa(eff) of 2(nd)-order DFB lasers. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effect of In0.2Ga0.8As and In0.2Al0.8As combination layer on band offsets of InAs quantum dots

We demonstrate the self-organized InAs quantum dots capped with thin and In0.2Al0.8As and In0.2Ga0.8As combination layers with a large ground and first excited energy separation emission at 1.35 mum at room temperature. Deep level transient spectroscopy is used to obtain quantitative information on emission activation energies and capture barriers for electrons and holes. For this system, the emission activation energies are larger than those for InAs/GaAs quantum dots. With the properties of wide energy separation and deep emission activation energies, self-organized InAs quantum dots capped with In0.2Al0.8As and In0.2Ga0.8As combination layers are one of the promising epitaxial structures of 1.3 mum quantum dot devices. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.

Photoluminescence of Te isoelectronic centers in ZnS : Te under hydrostatic pressure

The photoluminescence of four epitaxial ZnS: Te samples with Te concentration from 0.5% to 3.1% was investigated at different temperature and ambient pressure. Two well-known emission bands related to the isolated Te-1 and Te-2 pair isoelectronic centers were observed for the samples with Te concentrations of 0.5% and 0.65%. For the samples with Te concentrations of 1.4% and 3.1%, only was the Te-2-related peak observed. The pressure behaviors of these emission bands, were studied at 15 K. The Te-1 -related band has faster pressure shift to higher energy than ZnS band gap. On the other hand, the pressure coefficient of Te-2 -related bands is smaller than that of the ZnS band gap. According to a Koster-Slater model, we found that the increase of the density bandwidth of the valence band with pressure is the main reason for the faster shift of the Te-1 centers, while the relatively large difference in the pressure behavior of the Te-1 and Te-2 centers is mainly due to the difference in the pressure-induced enhancement of the impurity potential on Te-1 and Te-2 centers.

Wide-band polarization-insensitive high-output-power semiconductor optical amplifier based on thin tensile-strained bulk InGaAs

A polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with a very thin active tensile-strained InGaAs bulk has been fabricated. The polarization sensitivity of the amplifier gain is less than 1 dB over both the entire range of driving current and the 3 dB optical bandwidth of more than 80 nm. For optical signals of 1550 nm wavelength, the SOA exhibits a high saturation output power +7.6 dBm together with a low noise figure of 7.5 dB, fibre-to-fibre gain of 11.5 dB, and low polarization sensitivity of 0.5 dB. Additionally, at the gain peak 1520 nm, the fibre-to-fibre gain is measured to be 14.1 dB.

Spin-dependent transport through Cd1-xMnxTe diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dots

We theoretically investigate the spin-dependent transport through Cd1-xMnxTe diluted magnetic semiconductor (DMS) quantum dots (QD's) under the influence of both the external electric field and magnetic field using the recursion method. Our results show that (1) it can get a 100% polarized electric current by using suitable structure parameters; (2) for a fixed Cd1-xMnxTe DMS QD, the wider the system is, the more quickly the transmission coefficient increases; (3) for a fixed system length, the transmission peaks of the spin-up electrons move to lower Fermi energy with increasing Cd1-xMnxTe DMS QD radius, while the transmission of the spin-down electrons is almost unchanged; (4) the spin-polarized effect is slightly increased for larger magnetic fields; (5) the external static electric field moves the transmission peaks to higher or lower Fermi energy depending on the direction of the applied field; and (6) the spin-polarized effect decreases as the band offset increases. Our calculated results may be useful for the application of Cd1-xMnxTe DMS QD's to the spin-dependent microelectronic and optoelectronic devices.

MOVPE growth of grade-strained bulk InGaAs/InP for broad-band optoelectronic device applications

In this paper we present a novel growth of grade-strained bulk InGaAs/InP by linearly changing group-III TMGa source flow during low-pressure metalorganic vapor-phase epitaxy (LP-MOVPE). The high-resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) measurements showed that much different strain was simultaneously introduced into the fabricated bulk InGaAs/InP by utilizing this novel growth method. We experimentally demonstrated the utility and simplicity of the growth method by fabricating common laser diodes. As a first step, under the injection current of 100 mA, a more flat gain curve which has a spectral full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of about 120 nm was achieved by using the presented growth technique. Our experimental results show that the simple and new growth method is very suitable for fabricating broad-band semiconductor optoelectronic devices. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.