Improving Photovoltaics with High Luminescence Efficiency Quantum Dot Layers

A solar cell relies on its ability to turn photons into current. Because short wavelength photons are typically absorbed near the top surface of a cell, the generated charge carriers recombine before being collected. But when a layer of quantum dots (nanoscale semiconductor particles) is placed on top of the cell, it absorbs short wavelength photons and emits them into the cell at longer wavelengths, which enables more efficient carrier collection. However, the resulting power conversion efficiency of the system depends critically on the quantum dot luminescence efficiency – the nature of this relationship was previously unknown. Our calculations suggest that a quantum dot layer must have high luminescence efficiency (at least 80%) to improve the current output of existing photovoltaic (PV) cells; otherwise, it may worsen the cell’s efficiency. Our quantum dot layer (using quantum dots with over 85% quantum yield) slightly reduced the efficiency of our PV cells. We observed a decrease in short circuit current of a commercial-grade cell from 0.1977 A to 0.1826 A, a 7.6% drop, suggesting that improved optical coupling from the quantum dot emission into the solar cell is needed. With better optical coupling, we predict current enhancements between ~6% and ~8% for a solar cell that already has an antireflection coating. Such improvements could have important commercial impacts if the coating could be deployed in a scalable fashion.

Design of quantum-dot cellular automata circuits using cut-set retiming

As a potential alternative to CMOS technology, QCA provides an interesting paradigm in both communication and computation. However, QCAs unique four-phase clocking scheme and timing constraints present serious timing issues for interconnection and feedback. In this work, a cut-set retiming design procedure is proposed to resolve these QCA timing issues. The proposed design procedure can accommodate QCAs unique characteristics by performing delay-transfer and time-scaling to reallocate the existing delays so as to achieve efficient clocking zone assignment. Cut-set retiming makes it possible to effectively design relatively complex QCA circuits that include feedback. It utilizes the similar characteristics of synchronization, deep pipelines and local interconnections common to both QCA and systolic architectures. As a case study, a systolic Montgomery modular multiplier is designed to illustrate the procedure. Furthermore, a nonsystolic architecture, an S27 benchmark circuit, is designed and compared with previous designs. The comparison shows that the cut-set retiming method achieves a more efficient design, with a reduction of 22%, 44%, and 46% in terms of cell count, area, and latency, respectively.

Bit erasure analysis of binary adders in quantum-dot cellular automata

As a post-CMOS technology, the incipient Quantum-dot Cellular Automata technology has various advantages. A key aspect which makes it highly desirable is low power dissipation. One method that is used to analyse power dissipation in QCA circuits is bit erasure analysis. This method has been applied to analyse previously proposed QCA binary adders. However, a number of improved QCA adders have been proposed more recently that have only been evaluated in terms of area and speed. As the three key performance metrics for QCA circuits are speed, area and power, in this paper, a bit erasure analysis of these adders will be presented to determine their power dissipation. The adders to be analysed are the Carry Flow Adder (CFA), Brent-Kung Adder (B-K), Ladner-Fischer Adder (L-F) and a more recently developed area-delay efficient adder. This research will allow for a more comprehensive comparison between the different QCA adder proposals. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time power dissipation analysis has been carried out on these adders.

A First Step Towards Cost Functions for Quantum-dot Cellular Automata Designs

Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is potentially a very attractive alternative to CMOS for future digital designs. Circuit designs in QCA have been extensively studied. However, how to properly evaluate the QCA circuits has not been carefully considered. To date, metrics and area-delay cost functions directly mapped from CMOS technology have been used to compare QCA designs, which is inappropriate due to the differences between these two technologies. In this paper, several cost metrics specifically aimed at QCA circuits are studied. It is found that delay, the number of QCA logic gates, and the number and type of crossovers, are important metrics that should be considered when comparing QCA designs. A family of new cost functions for QCA circuits is proposed. As fundamental components in QCA computing arithmetic, QCA adders are reviewed and evaluated with the proposed cost functions. By taking the new cost metrics into account, previous best adders become unattractive and it has been shown that different optimization goals lead to different “best” adders.

Cost-Efficient Decimal Adder Design in Quantum-dot Cellular Automata

Applications that cannot tolerate the loss of accuracy that results from binary arithmetic demand hardware decimal arithmetic designs. Binary arithmetic in Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) technology has been extensively investigated in recent years. However, only limited attention has been paid to QCA decimal arithmetic. In this paper, two cost-efficient binary-coded decimal (BCD) adders are presented. One is based on the carry flow adder (CFA) using a conventional correction method. The other uses the carry look ahead (CLA) algorithm which is the first QCA CLA decimal adder proposed to date. Compared with previous designs, both decimal adders achieve better performance in terms of latency and overall cost. The proposed CFA-based BCD adder has the smallest area with the least number of cells. The proposed CLA-based BCD adder is the fastest with an increase in speed of over 60% when compared with the previous fastest decimal QCA adder. It also has the lowest overall cost with a reduction of over 90% when compared with the previous most cost-efficient design.

Facile Synthesis of Anatase TiO2 Quantum-Dot/Graphene-Nanosheet Composites with Enhanced Electrochemical Performance for Lithium-Ion Batteries

A facile method to synthesize well-dispersed TiO₂ quantum dots on graphene nanosheets (TiO₂-QDs/GNs) in a water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion system is reported. The TiO₂/graphene composites display high performance as an anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), such as having high reversible lithium storage capacity, high Coulombic efficiency, excellent cycling stability, and high rate capability. The excellent electrochemical performance and special structure of the composites thus offer a way to prepare novel graphene-based electrode materials for high-energy-density and high-power LIBs. 

Model of single-electron decay from a strongly isolated quantum dot

Recent measurements of electron escape from a nonequilibrium charged quantum dot are interpreted within a two-dimensional (2D) separable model. The confining potential is derived from 3D self-consistent Poisson-Thomas-Fermi calculations. It is found that the sequence of decay lifetimes provides a sensitive test of the confining potential and its dependence on electron occupation

Room-temperature continuous-wave operation of GaInNAs/GaAs quantum dot laser with GaAsN barrier grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy

We present the results of GaInNAs/GaAs quantum dot structures with GaAsN barrier layers grown by solid source molecular beam epitaxy. Extension of the emission wavelength of GaInNAs quantum dots by ~170nm was observed in samples with GaAsN barriers in place of GaAs. However, optimization of the GaAsN barrier layer thickness is necessary to avoid degradation in luminescence intensity and structural property of the GaInNAs dots. Lasers with GaInNAs quantum dots as active layer were fabricated and room-temperature continuous-wave lasing was observed for the first time. Lasing occurs via the ground state at ~1.2μm, with threshold current density of 2.1kA/cm[superscript 2] and maximum output power of 16mW. These results are significantly better than previously reported values for this quantum-dot system.

Thermoelectric transport properties through a T-shaped single quantum dot

We study the thermopower, thermal conductance, electric conductance and the thermoelectric figure of merit for a gate-defined T-shaped single quantum dot (QD). The QD is solved in the limit of strong Coulombian repulsion U -> infinity, inside the dot, and the quantum wire is modeled on a tight-binding linear chain. We employ the X-boson approach for the Anderson impurity model to describe the localized level within the quantum dot. Our results are in qualitative agreement with recent experimental reports and other theoretical researches for the case of a quantum dot embedded into a conduction channel, employing analogies between the two systems. The results for the thermopower sign as a function of the gate voltage (associated with the quantum dot energy) are in agreement with a recent experimental result obtained for a suspended quantum dot. The thermoelectric figure of merit times temperature results indicates that, at low temperatures and in the crossover between the intermediate valence and Kondo regimes, the system might have practical applicability in the development of thermoelectric devices. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Two-colour photocurrent detection technique for coherent control of a single InGaAs/GaAs quantum dot

We present a two-colour photocurrent detection method for coherent control of a single InGaAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot. A pulse shaping technique provides a high degree of control over picosecond optical pulses. Rabi rotations on the exciton to biexciton transition are presented, and fine structure beating is detected via time-resolved measurements. (c) 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

Fast optical preparation, control, and readout of a single quantum dot spin

We propose and demonstrate the sequential initialization, optical control, and readout of a single spin trapped in a semiconductor quantum dot. Hole spin preparation is achieved through ionization of a resonantly excited electron-hole pair. Optical control is observed as a coherent Rabi rotation between the hole and charged-exciton states, which is conditional on the initial hole spin state. The spin-selective creation of the charged exciton provides a photocurrent readout of the hole spin state.

Magnetoresistance and transistor-like behavior of a double quantum-dot via crossed Andreev reflections

The electric current and the magnetoresistance effect are studied in a double quantum-dot system, where one of the dots QD(a) is coupled to two ferromagnetic electrodes (F-1; F-2), while the second QD(b) is connected to a superconductor S. For energy scales within the superconductor gap, electric conduction is allowed by Andreev reflection processes. Due to the presence of two ferromagnetic leads, non-local crossed Andreev reflections are possible. We found that the magnetoresistance sign can be changed by tuning the external potential applied to the ferromagnets. In addition, it is possible to control the current of the first ferromagnet (F-1) through the potential applied to the second one (F-2). We have also included intradot interaction and gate voltages at each quantum dot and analyzed their influence through a mean field approximation. The interaction reduces the current amplitudes with respect to the non-interacting case, but the switching effect still remains as a manifestation of quantum coherence, in scales of the order of the superconductor coherence length. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4723000]