Hydrogen sensors based on Pt-AlGN/AIN/GaN Schottky diode - art. no. 68291R

Pt/AlGaN/AlN/GaN Schottky diodes have been fabricated and characterized for H-2 sensing. Platinum (Pt) with a thickness of 20nm was evaporated on the sample to form the Schottky contact. The ohmic contact, formed by evaporated Ti/Al/Ni/Au metals, was subsequently annealed by a rapid thermal treatment at 860 degrees C for 30 s in N-2 ambience. Both the forward and reverse current of the device increased greatly when exposed to H-2 gas. The sensor's responses under different hydrogen concentrations from 500ppm to 10% H-2 in N-2 at 300K were investigated. A shift of 0.45V at 297K is obtained at a fixed forward current for switching from N-2 to 10% H-2 in N-2. Time response of the sensor at a fixed bias of 0.5 V was also measured. The turn-on response of the device was rapid, while the recovery of the sensor at N-2 atmosphere was rather slow. But it recovered quickly when the device was exposed to the air. The decrease in the barrier height of the diode was calculated to be about 160meV upon introduction of 10% H-2 into the ambient. The sensitivity of the sensor is also calculated. Some thermodynamics analyses have been done according to the Langmuir isotherm equation.

Operational Optimization of GaN Thin Film Growth Employing Numerical Simulation in a Showerhead MOCVD Reactor

A detailed reaction-tran sport model was studied in a showerhead reactor for metal organic chemical vapor deposition of GaN film by using computational fluid dynamics simulation. It was found that flat flow lines without swirl are crucial to improve the uniformity of the film growth, and thin temperature gradient above the suscptor can increase the film deposition rate. By above-mentioned research, we can employ higher h (the distance from the susceptor to the inlet), P (operational pressure) and the rate of susceptor rotation to improve the film growth.

AlGaN/AlN/GaN/InGaN/GaN DH-HEMTs with improved mobility grown by MOCVD

AlGaN/AlN/GaN/InGaN/GaN double heterojunction high electron mobility transistors (DH-HEMTs) structures with improved buffer isolation have been investigated. The structures were grown by MOCVD on sapphire substrate. AFM result of this structure shows a good surface morphology with the root-mean-square roughness (RMS) of 0.196 nm for a scan area of 5 mu mx5 mu m. A mobility as high as 1950 cm(2)/Vs with the sheet carrier density of 9.89x10(12) cm(-2) was obtained, which was about 50% higher than other results of similar structures which have been reported. Average sheet resistance of 327 Omega/sq was achieved. The HEMTs device using the materials was fabricated, and a maximum drain current density of 718.5 mA/mm, an extrinsic transconductance of 248 mS/mm, a current gain cutoff frequency of 16 GHz and a maximum frequency of oscillation 35 GHz were achieved.

The difference of Si doping efficiency in GaN and AlGaN in GaN-based HBT structure

An AlGaN/GaN HBT structure was grown by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on sapphire substrate. From the high-resolution x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) measurements, it was indicated that the structure is of good quality and the AlGaN/GaN interfaces are abrupt and smooth. In order to obtain the values of Si doping and electronic concentrations in the AlGaN emitter and GaN emitter cap layers, Secondary Ion Mass Spectroscopy (SIMS) and electrochemical CV measurements were carried out. The results showed that though the flow rate of silane (SiH4) in growing the AlGaN emitter was about a quarter of that in growing GaN emitter cap and subcollector layer, the Si sputtering yield in GaN cap layer was much smaller than that in the AlGaN emitter layer. The electronic concentration in GaN was about half of that in the AlGaN emitter layer. It is proposed that the Si, Al co-doping in growing the AlGaN emitter layer greatly enhances the Si dopant efficiency in the AlGaN alloy. (c) 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co KGaA, Weinheim.

Electrical and Optical Phase Transition Properties of Nano Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films

Nano-vanadium dioxide thin films were prepared through thermal annealing vanadium oxide thin films deposited by dual ion beam sputtering. The nano-vanadium dioxide thin films changed its state from semiconductor phase to metal phase through heating by homemade system. Four point probe method and Fourier transform infrared spectrum technology were employed to measure and anaylze the electrical and optical semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of nano-vanadium dioxide thin films, respectively. The results show that there is an obvious discrepancy between the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of electrical and optical phase transition. The nano-vanadium dioxide thin films' phase transiton temperature defined by electrical phase transiton property is 63 degrees C, higher than that defined by optical phase transiton property at 5 mu m, 60 degrees C; and the temperature width of electrical phase transition duration is also wider than that of optical phase transiton duration. The semiconductor-to-metal phase transiton temperature defined by optical properties increases with increasing wavelength in the region of infrared wave band, and the occuring temperature of phase transiton from semiconductor to metal also increases with wavelength increasing, but the duration temperature width of transition decreases with wavelength increasing. The phase transition properties of nano-vanadium dioxide thin film has obvious relationship with wavelength in infrared wave band. The phase transition properties can be tuned through wavelength in infrared wave band, and the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of nano vanadiium dioxide thin films can be better characterized by electrical property.

A Selective-Area Metal Bonding InGaAsP-Si Laser

A 1.55-mu m hybrid InGaAsP-Si laser was fabricated by the selective-area metal bonding method. Two Si blocking stripes, each with an excess-metals accommodated space, were used to separate the optical coupling area and the metal bonding areas. In such a structure, the air gap between the InGaAsP structure and Si waveguide has been reduced to be negligible. The laser operates with a threshold current density of 1.7 kA/cm(2) and a slope efficiency of 0.05 W/A under pulsed-wave operation. Room-temperature continuous lasing with a maximum output power of 0.45 mW is realized.

Ultra-narrow dual-channel filter based on symmetrical sampled fibre Bragg grating

A kind of ultra-narrow dual-channel filter is proposed in principle and demonstrated experimentally. This filter is designed by means of two sampled fibre Bragg gratings (SFBGs), where one is periodic 0-pi sampling and the other is symmetrical spatial sampling. The former can create two stopbands in the transmission spectra and the latter can produce two ultra-riarrow passbands. Our filter has the 3-dB bandwidth of about 1 pm, whose value is two orders of magnitude less than the bandwidth of the traditional SFBG filters. The proposed filter has a merit that the channel spacing remains unchanged when tuning the filter.

Mode field diameter and nonlinear properties of air-core nanowires

Exact solutions of Maxwell's equations describing the lightwave through 3-layer-structured cylindrical waveguide are obtained and the mode field diameter and nonlinear coefficient of air-core nanowires (ACNWs) are numerically calculated. The simulation results show that ACNWs offer some unique optical properties, such as tight field confining ability and extremely high nonlinearity. At a certain wavelength and air core radius, we optimize the waveguide design to maximize the nonlinear coefficient and minimize the mode field diameter. Our results show that the ACNWs may be powerful potential tools for novel micro-photonic devices in the near future.

Kinetics of photoinduced anisotropy in bacteriorhodopsin film under two pumping beams

Photoinduced anisotropy in bacteriorhodopsin (BR) film arises from the selective bleaching of BR molecules to linearly polarized light. The kinetics of photoinduced anisotropy excited by single and two pumping beams are investigated theoretically and experimentally. Compared with a single pumping beam (650 nm), which produces comparatively small photoinduced anisotropy, dual-wavelength linearly polarized pumping beams (650 and 405 nm) can obviously change the photoinduced anisotropy. When the polarization orientation of the 405 ran pumping beam is perpendicular to that of the 650 nm pumping beam, the peak and steady values of the photoinduced anisotropy kinetic curves are remarkably enhanced. But when the two pumping beams have parallel polarization orientation, the peak and steady values are restrained. At a fixed intensity of the 650 nm pumping beam, there exists an optimal intensity for the 405 nm pumping beam to maximize the value of the photoinduced anisotropy. The photoinduced transmittance of the polarizer-BR-analyzer system is modulated by the polarization angle of the 405 nm pumping beam in an approximate-cosine form. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.

Ras 超家族蛋白的起源演化研究

Ras 超家族蛋白是真核生物中普遍存在的一类小分子GTP 结合蛋白。它们 具有高度保守的GTP 结合结构域，根据序列结构和细胞功能被分为七个家族： Sar1、Arf、SRβ、Ran、Rab、Rho 和Ras。这些蛋白分别行使着真核生物特有的 细胞功能，诸如运输小泡的形成和转运（Sar1、Arf、Rab），胞质骨架的建成（Rho）， 细胞核-胞质运输及核膜重建（Ran）等，其起源演化和真核细胞的起源密切相关。 本文利用生物信息学手段和分子生物学实验调查研究了原核生物和原生生物中 Ras 超家族蛋白同源物的存在情况，并进行了分子系统分析，对Ras 超家族蛋白 的起源演化问题进行了较为深入、系统的探讨。获得了以下结果和结论： 1）通过原核生物基因组的搜索和序列结构分析，在一些真细菌中首次鉴定 出了高度相似于真核生物Ras 超家族蛋白的原核生物同源物，且实验证明它们的 基因具有表达活性；在原细菌中的产甲烷菌和热原体中也发现有序列分歧较大的 同源物。并在更多的真细菌种类中鉴定出了更多的前人已报道的另一种小分子 GTP 结合蛋白—MglA。序列比对分析表明MglA 蛋白具有自己独特的序列特征， 与真核生物的Ras 超家族蛋白序列差异较大。进一步的分子系统分析显示：真核 生物Ras 超家族蛋白的七个家族中，Ran、Rab、Rho 和Ras 等四个家族聚在一 起，上述我们所鉴定的真细菌的Ras 超家族蛋白同源物则紧聚在其外围；真核生 物的另三个家族（Sar1、Arf、SRβ）聚成另一枝，并接着与产甲烷原细菌的的同 源物及真细菌的MglA 蛋白聚在一起。这些结果表明：Ras 超家族蛋白不是前人 所认为的为真核生物所特有，实际上在一些原核生物中就已产生；真核生物Ras 超家族蛋白的祖先也不太可能是前人所认为的为真细菌的MglA；真核生物Ras 超家族蛋白的七个家族可能有两种不同的起源：Ran、Rab、Rho 和Ras 等可能 来源于蓝细菌或蛋白菌，或二者的共同祖先，而Sar1、Arf 和SRβ 可能来源于产 甲烷原细菌，这也可能反映了真核细胞“融合起源”的历史。 2）通过搜索一些较为低等的单细胞真核生物——原生生物基因组中Ras 超 家族蛋白，并结合一系列其他处在不同进化地位真核生物的Ras 超家族蛋白进行 分析，发现Sar1、Arf、Rab 和Ran 家族的蛋白在真核生物中普遍存在，而SRβ、 Rho 和Ras 家族蛋白在有些真核生物中未找到。根据各家族蛋白在真核生物中的分布情况推测在真核生物的最近共同祖先中存在的Ras 超家族蛋白可能有下列 两种情况：（1）最近的共同祖先已经具有了所有七个家族的蛋白，并且至少有 11 个成员：1 个Sar1、1 个SRβ、3 个Arf（Arf1、Arl1、Arl2）、3 个Rab（Rab1、 Rab6、Rab11）、1 个Ran、1 个Rho（Rac）和1 个Ras（RheB）。因而，部分真 核生物中缺少SRβ、Rho 和Ras 家族蛋白很可能是因基因丢失所致。植物中Ras 家族蛋白的缺少应该是由于在进化早期，其祖先绿藻丢失了单个Ras 家族蛋白基 因所致；（2）根据Cavalier-Smith 的真核生物划分为单鞭毛（变形虫类、真菌和 后生动物）和双鞭毛（藻类、植物和除变形虫外的原生动物）两大类的分类观点， 真核生物最近的共同祖先可能只具有除Ras 家族而外的六个家族的成员，而Ras 家族蛋白则是在此两大类群分化以后在单鞭毛类生物中才产生的，多数双鞭毛类 生物如原生动物、绿藻和植物中没有Ras 的情况应该是一种祖征，而个别双鞭毛 类生物如红藻具有的Ras 家族蛋白则很可能是从单鞭毛类生物那里水平基因转 移而来的。至于SRβ 和Rho 家族蛋白在部分物种中的缺少，则还是可能因为基 因丢失所致。此外，变形虫类生物中大量的Ras 超家族蛋白提示基因组的大小或 进化地位的高低并不是Ras 超家族蛋白成员多少的决定性因素，而细胞相应生理 活动的需求才是家族成员增多的关键。

X-Band GaN Power HEMTs with Power Density of 2.23W/mm Grown on Sapphire by MOCVD

The growth,fabrication,and characterization of 0.2μm gate-length AlGaN/GaN HEMTs,with a high mobility GaN thin layer as a channel,grown on (0001) sapphire substrates by MOCVD,are described.The unintentionally doped 2.5μm thick GaN epilayers grown with the same conditions as the GaN channel have a room temperature electron mobility of 741cm2/(V·s) at an electron concentration of 1.52×1016 cm-3.The resistivity of the thick GaN buffer layer is greater than 108Ω·cm at room temperature.The 50mm HEMT wafers grown on sapphire substrates show an average sheet resistance of 440.9Ω/□ with uniformity better than 96%.Devices of 0.2μm×40μm gate periphery exhibit a maximum extrinsic transconductance of 250mS/mm and a current gain cutoff frequency of77GHz.The AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with 0.8mm gate width display a total output power of 1.78W (2.23W/mm) and a linear gain of 13.3dB at 8GHz.The power devices also show a saturated current density as high as 1.07A/mm at a gate bias of 0.5V.

RF-MBE Grown AlGaN/GaN HEMT Structure with High Al Content

A Si doped AlGaN/GaN HEMT structure with high Al content (x= 44%) in the barrier layer is grown on sapphire substrate by RF-MBE. The structural and electrical properties of the heterostructure are investigated by the triple axis X-ray diffraction and Van der Pauw-Hall measurement, respectively. The observed prominent Bragg peaks of the GaN and AlGaN and the Hall results show that the structure is of high quality with smooth interface.fabricated and characterized. Better DC characteristics, maximum drain current of 1.0A/mm and extrinsic transconductance of 218mS/mm are obtained when compared with HEMTs fabricated using structures with lower Al mole fraction in the AlGaN barrier layer. The results suggest that the high Al content in the AlGaN barrier layer is promising in improving material electrical properties and device performance.