A silicon-on-insulator-based thermo-optic waveguide switch with low insertion loss and fast response

A silicon-on-insulator-based thermo-optic waveguide switch integrated with spot size converters is designed and fabricated by inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching. The device shows good characteristics, including low, insertion loss of 8 +/- 1 dB for wavelength 1530-1580 nm and fast response times of 4.6 As for rising edge and 1.9 mu s for failing edge. The extinction ratios of the two channels are 19.1 and 18 dB, respectively.

Study on growth mechanism of low-temperature prepared microcrystalline Si thin films

Microcrystalline silicon thin films at different growth stages were prepared by hot wire chemical vapor deposition. Atomic force microscopy has been applied to investigate the evolution of surface topography of these films. According to the fractal analysis I it was found that, the growth of Si film deposited on glass substrate is the zero-diffused stochastic deposition; while for the film on Si substrate, it is the finite diffused deposition on the initial growth stage, and transforms to the zero-diffused stochastic deposition when the film thickness reaches a certain value. The film thickness dependence of island density shows that a maximum of island density appears at the critical film thickness for both substrates. The data of Raman spectra approve that, on the glass substrate, the a-Si: H/mu c-Si:H transition is related to the critical film thickness. Different substrate materials directly affect the surface diffusion ability of radicals, resulting in the difference of growth modes on the earlier growth stage.

Field emission mechanism from a single-layer ultra-thin semiconductor film cathode

Field emission (FE) from a single-layer ultra-thin semiconductor film cathode (SUSC) on a metal substrate has been investigated theoretically. The self-consistent quantum FE model is developed by synthetically considering the energy band bending and electron scattering. As a typical example, we calculate the FE properties of ultra-thin A1N film with an adjustable film thickness from 1 to 10 nm. The calculated results show that the FE characteristic is evidently modulated by varying the film thickness, and there is an optimum thickness of about 3 nm. Furthermore, a four-step FE mechanism is suggested such that the distinct FE current of a SUSC is rooted in the thickness sensitivity of its quantum structure, and the optimum FE properties of the SUSC should be attributed to the change in the effective potential combined with the attenuation of electron scattering.

Influence of GaAsP insertion layers on performance of InGaAsP/InGaP/AlGaAs quantum-well laser

We report on the use of very thin GaAsP insertion layers to improve the performance of an InGaAsP/InGaP/AlGaAs single quantum-well laser structure grown by metal organic chemical vapour deposition. Compared to the non-insertion structure, the full width at half maximum of photoluminescence spectrum of the insertion structure measured at room temperature is decreased from 47 to 38 nm indicating sharper interfaces. X-ray diffraction shows that the GaAsP insertion layers between AlGaAs and InGaP compensates for the compressive strain to improve the total interface. The laser performance of the insertion structure is significantly improved as compared with the counterpart without the insertion layers. The threshold current is decreased from 560 to 450mA while the slope efficiency is increased from 0.61 to 0.7W/A and the output power is increased from 370 to 940mW. The slope efficiency improved is very high for the devices without coated facets. The improved laser performance is attributed to the suppression of indium carry-over due to the use of the GaAsP insertion layers.

Electron resonant tunneling through InAs/GaAs quantum dots embedded in a Schottky diode with an AlAs insertion layer

Molecular beam epitaxy was employed to manufacture self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dot Schottky resonant tunneling diodes. By virtue of a thin AlAs insertion barrier, the thermal current was effectively reduced and electron resonant tunneling through quantum dots under both forward and reverse biased conditions was observed at relatively high temperature of 77 K. The ground states of quantum dots were found to be at similar to 0.19 eV below the conduction band of GaAs matrix. The theoretical computations were in conformity with experimental data. (c) 2006 The Electrochemical Society.

Optical investigation on the annealing effect and its mechanism of GaInAs/GaNAs quantum wells

Thermal annealing of GaInAs/GaNAs quantum wells (QWs) as well as other nitrogen- and indium-contained QW structures grown by molecular beam epitaxy and its effect on optical properties are investigated. The photoluminescence (PL) and photovoltaic (PV) spectra of annealed GaInAs/GaNAs QWs show that the luminescence properties become degraded due to the N diffusion from the GaNAs barrier layers to the GaInAs well layer. Meantime, the annealing-induced blueshift of the PL peak in this QW system is mainly induced by the change of In distribution, suggesting that the In reorganization is greatly assisted by the N-induced defects. The elucidation of annealing effect in GaInAs/GaNAs QW samples is helpful for a better understanding to the annealing effect in the GaInNAs/GaAs QWs. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

The mechanism of blueshift in excitation-intensity-dependent photo luminescence spectrum of nitride multiple quantum wells

(1 1 (2) over bar 0) GaN/InGaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) were grown on (1 (2) over bar 0 2) sapphire by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. The excitation-intensity-dependent photoluminescence (PL) spectrum of these samples was measured, and no peak shift was observed. This phenomenon was attributed to the absence of piezoelectric field (PEF) along the growth orientation of the (1 1 (2) over bar 0) face MQWs. Our experimental results showed that PEF was the main reason causing peak blueshift in excitation-intensity-dependent PL spectrum of (0 0 0 1) InGaN/GaN NIQWs. It was expected that fabricating (1 1 (2) over bar 0) face nitride device should be a method to avoid PEF and get low-threshold, high-quantum-efficiency and stable-emission-wavelength light-emission devices. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Electroluminescence from Au/(SiO2/Si/SiO2) nanometer double barrier/p-Si structures and its mechanism

SiO2/Si/SiO2 nanometer double barriers (SSSNDB) with Si layers of twenty-seven different thicknesses in a range of 1-5 nm with an interval of 0.2 nm have been deposited on p-Si substrates using two-target alternative magnetron sputtering. Electroluminescence (EL) from the semitransparent Au film/SSSNDB/p-Si diodes and from a control diode without any Si layer have been observed under forward bias. Each EL spectrum of all these diodes can be fitted by two Gaussian bands with peak energies of 1.82 and 2.25 eV, and full widths at half maximum of 0.38 and 0.69 eV, respectively. It is found that the current, EL peak wavelength and intensities of the two Gaussian bands of the Au/SSSNDB/p-Si structure oscillate synchronously with increasing Si layer thickness with a period corresponding to half a de Broglie wavelength of the carriers. The experimental results strongly indicate that the EL originates mainly from two types of luminescence centres with energies of 1.82 and 2.25 eV in the SiO2 barriers, rather than from the nanometer Si well in the SSSNDB. The EL mechanism is discussed in detail.

Mechanism on exciton-mediated energy transfer in erbium-doped silicon

Exciton-mediated energy transfer model in Er-doped silicon was presented. The emission intensity is related to optically active Er concentration, lifetime of excited Er3+ ion and spontaneous emission. The thermal quenching of the Er luminescence in Si is caused by thermal ionization of Er-bound exciton complex and nonradiative energy back-transfer processes, which correspond to the activation energy of 6.6 and 47.4 meV, respectively. Er doping in silicon introduces donor states, a large enhancement in the electrical activation of Er (up to two orders of magnitude) is obtained by co-implanting Er with O. It appears that the donor states are the gateway to the optically active Er. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Wavelength tuning in GaAsAlGaAs quantum wells by InAs submonolayer insertion

Wavelength tuning of exciton emissions has been achieved simply by inserting an InAs submonolayer at the centre of GaAs quantum wells during molecular beam epitaxy growth. Photoluminescence measurements show that the emission energy can be effectively tuned from the quantum-well-determined energy down to less than the band gap of GaAs, depending on the well width as well as the InAs layer thickness. Using the effective-mass approximation, the tuning effect can be well predicted theoretically The results reported here may provide an alternative way to tune the wavelength in optoelectronic devices.

Formation mechanism of electric field domains

Hydrostatic pressure measurements are used to investigate the formation mechanism of electric field domains in doped weakly-coupled GaAs/AlAs superlattices. For the first plateau-like region in the I-V curve, two kinds of sequential resonant tunnelling are observed. For P<2 kbar the high-field domain is formed by the Gamma-Gamma process, while for P>2 kbar the high-field domain is formed by the T-X process. For the second plateau-libe region, the high-field domain is attributed to Gamma-X sequential resonant tunnelling. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Mechanism of induced reaction during XPS depth profile measurements of CeO2/Si films grown by ion beam epitaxy

In a search for the mechanism of the induced reduction reaction that occurred in X-ray photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) depth profiles measured experimentally on CeO2/Si epilayers grown by ion beam epitaxy (IBE), several possibilities have been checked. The first possibility, that the X-ray induces the reaction, has been ruled out by experimentation. Other possible models for the incident-ion induced reaction, one based on short-range interaction (direct collision) and the other based on long-range potential accompanied with the incident-ions, have been tested by simulation on computer. The results proved that the main mechanism is the former, not the latter. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Photoluminescence mechanism of Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 matrix

The interface state recombination effect from the quantum confinement effect in PL signals from the SRO material system was studied. The results show that the larger the size of Si NCs, the more beneficial for the interface state recombination process to surpass the quantum confinement process, in support of Qin's model.

Growth mechanism of InGaAlAs waveguides by narrow stripe selective MOVPE

Growth mechanism of InGaAlAs waveguides by narrow stripe selective MOVPE has been studied. Both the InGaAlAs bulk waveguides and the InGaAlAs MQW waveguides were successful grown on the patterned substrates at optimized growth conditions. The mask stripe width varied from 0 to 40 mu m, while the window region width between a pair of mask stripes was fixed 2.5 mu m. These selectively grown waveguides were covered by specific InP layers, which can keep the InGaAlAs waveguides from being oxidized during the fabrication of devices. In particular, there exhibit strong dependences of the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum on the mask stripe width for the samples. The results were explained in considering both the migration effect from a masked region (MMR) and the lateral vapor diffusion effect (LVD).