Pulse Compression by Filamentation in Argon with an Acoustic Optical Programmable Dispersive Filter for Predispersion Compensation

We have experimentally demonstrated pulses 0.4 mJ in duration smaller than 12 fs with an excellent spatial beam profile by self-guided propagation in argon. The original 52 fs pulses from the chirped pulsed amplification laser system are first precompressed to 32 fs by inserting an acoustic optical programmable dispersive filter instrument into the laser system for spectrum reshaping and dispersion compensation, and the pulse spectrum is subsequently broadened by filamentation in an argon cell. By using chirped mirrors for post-dispersion compensation, the pulses are successfully compressed to smaller than 12 fs.

Investigation on Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd fractions in the natural surface coatings sampled and surficial sediments collected in the Songhua River, China

Natural surface coatings sampled (NSCSs) from the surface of shingles and surficial sediments (SSs) in the Songhua River, China were employed to investigate the similarities and difference in fractions of heavy metals (Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Pb, and Cd) between NSCSs and SSs using the modified sequential extraction procedure (MSEP). The results show that the differences between NSCSs and SSs in Fe fractions were insignificant and Fe was dominantly present as residual phase (76.22% for NSCSs and 80.88% for SSs) and Fe-oxides phase (20.33% for NSCSs and 16.15% for SSs). Significant variation of Mn distribution patterns between NSCSs and SSs was observed with Mn in NSCSs mainly present in Mn-oxides phase (48.27%) and that in SSs present as residual phase (45.44%). Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd were found dominantly in residual fractions (>48%), and next in solid oxides/hydroxides for Zn, Pb and Cd and in easily oxidizable solids/compounds form for Cu, respectively. The heavy metal distribution pattern implied that Fe/Mn oxides both in NSCSs and SSs were more important sinks for binding and adsorption of Zn, Pb and Cd than organic matter (OM), and inversely, higher affinity of Cu to OM than Fe/Mn oxides in NSCSs and SSs was obtained. Meanwhile, it was found that the distributions of heavy metals in NSCSs and SSs were similar to each other and the pseudo-total concentrations of Zn, Cu, Pb and Cd in NSCSs were greater than those in SSs, highlighting the more importance for NSCSs than SSs in controlling behaviours of heavy metals in aquatic environments.

A 10-GHz Bandwidth Electroabsorption Modulated Laser by Ultra-Low-Pressure Selective Area Growth

A novel integration technique has been developed using band-gap energy control of InGaAsP/InGaAsP multiquantum-well (MQW) structures during simultaneous ultra-low-pressure (22 mbar) selective-area-growth (SAG) process in metal-organic chemical vapour deposition. A fundamental study of the controllability of band gap energy by the SAG method is performed. A large band-gap photoluminescence wavelength shift of 83nm is obtained with a small mask width variation (0-30μm). The method is then applied to fabricate an MQW distributed-feedback laser monolithically integrated with an electroabsorption modulator. The experimental results exhibit superior device characteristics with low threshold of 19mA, over 24 dB extinction ratio when coupled into a single mode fibre. More than 10 GHz modulation bandwidth is also achieved, which demonstrates that the ultra-low-pressure SAG technique is a promising approach for high-speed transmission photonic integrated circuits.

LPCVD Growth of 3C-SiC on Si Mesas and SiO2/Si Substrates for MEMS Applications

This paper presents the development of LPCVD growth of 3C-SiC thin films grown on Si mesas and thermally oxidized SiO2 masks over Si with an area of 150 × 100μm^2 and SiO2/Si substrates. The growth has been performed via chemical vapor deposition using SiH4 and C2H4 precursor gases with carrier gas of H2. 3C-SiC films on these substrates were characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction （ XRD ）, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy （ XPS ）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM） and room temperature Hall effect measurements. It is shown that there were no voids at the interface between 3C-SiC and SiO2.

Optical Pr operties of GaNAs and GaAsSb Semiconductors

Under short pulse laser excitation, it has been observed, for the first time, a new high-energy photoluminescence emission from GaNx As1- x/GaAs SQWs. This new emission has totally different optical properties compared with the localized exciton transition in GaNx As1-x, and is attributed to the recombination of delocalized excitons in QWs. At the same time, a competition process between localized and delocalized exciton emissions in GaNx As1-x/GaAs quantum wells is observed in the temperaturedependent PL spectra under the short pulse excitation. This competition process for the first time, reveals the physical origin of the temperature-induced S-shaped PL peak shift, which was often reported in the disordered alloy semiconductor system under continuous-wave excitation and puzzled people for a long time. We have also investigated a set of GaNx As1- x samples with small nitrogen composition( x ＜ 1% )by PL, and time-resolved PL. After the PL dependence on temperature and excitation power and PL dynamics were measured, the new PL peak was identified as an intrinsic transition of alloy, rather than N-related bound states. This is the first observation in PL, showing that alloy state exists in GaNx As1- x materials even when N composition is smaller than 0.1%. Finally by selective excitation,both type-Ⅰ and type-Ⅱ transitions were observed simultaneously in GaAs1-xSbx/GaAs SQWs for the first time.

Effect of Annealing on Structural and Magnetic Properties of a Thick (Ga,Mn)As Layer

We investigate effects of annealing on magnetic properties of a thick (Ga,Mn)As layer, and find a dramatic increase of the Curie temperature from 65 to 115 K by postgrowth annealing for a 500-nm (Ga,Mn)As layer. Auger electron spectroscopy measurements suggest that the increase of the Curie temperature is mainly due to diffusion of Mn interstitial to the free surface. The double-crystal x-ray diffraction patterns show that the lattice constant of (Ga,Mn)As decreases with increasing annealing temperature. As a result, the annealing induced reduction of the lattice constant is mainly attributed to removal of Mn interstitial.

Fabrication of a SOI Based Channel-shifted Multimode Interference Coupler

A silicon-on-insulator based channel-shifted multimode interference coupler is designed and fabricated. A two dimensional beam propagation method is used to analyze the dependence of coupler′s performances on the width and length of the multimode waveguide. The device fabricated has a power shift ratio of 73 and an excess loss of about 2.2 dB. An enhancement of fabrication accuracies could further improve the coupler performances.

Stable mode-locking in an Yb:YAG laser with a fast SESAM

Stable mode-locking in a diode-pumped Yb:YAG laser was obtained with a very fast semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). The pulse width was measured to be 4 ps at the central wavelength of 1047 nm. The average power was 200 mW and the repetition rate was 200 MHz.

1.55μm Fabry-Perot Thermo-Optical Tunable Filter with amorphous-Si as Cavity

A 1.55μm Fabry-Perot (F-P) thermo-optical tunable filter is fabricated. The cavity is made of amorphous silicon (a-Si) layer grown by electron-beam evaporation technique. Due to the excellent thermo-optical property of a-Si, the refractive index of the F-P cavity will be changed by heating; the transmittance resonant peak will therefore shift substantially. The measured tuning range is 12nm, FWHM (full-width-at-half-maximum) of the transmission peak is 9nm, and heating efficiency is 0.1K/mW. The large FWHM is mainly due to the non-ideal coating deposition and mirror undulation. Possible improvements to increase the efficiency of heating are suggested.

Wavelength Tuning in Two-Section Distributed Bragg Reflector Laser by Selective Intermixing of InGaAp-InGaAsP Quantum Well Structure

The two-section tunable ridge waveguide distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser fabricated by the selective intermixing of an InGaAsP-InGaAsP quantum well structure is presented. The threshold current of the laser is 51mA. The tunable range of the laser is 4.6nm, and the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) is 40dB.

Raman Investigatins of 3C-SiC Films Grown on Si (100) and Sapphire (0001) by LPCVD

The Raman measurements have been performed with the back-scattering geometry on the SiC films grown on Si(100) and sapphire (0001) by LPCVD. Typical TO and LO phonon peaks of 3C-SiC were observed for all the samples grown on Si and apphire substrates, indicating the epilayers are 3C-SiC polytype. Using a free-standing 3C-SiC film removed from Si(100) as a free-stress sample, the stresses of 3C-SiC on Si(100) and sapphire (0001) were estimated according to the shift of TO and LO phonons.

3μm GaInNAs/GasAs Quantum Well Resonant Cavity Enhanced Photodetector

A 1.3μm GaInNAs resonant cavity enhanced (RCE) photodetector (PD) has been grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) monolithically on (100) GaAs substrate using a home-made ion-removed dc-plasma cell as nitrogen source. A transfer matrix method was used to optimize the device structure. The absorption region is composed of three GaInNAs quantum wells separated by GaAs layers. Devices were isolated by etching 130μm-diameter mesas and filling polyamide into grooves. The maximal quantum efficiency of the device is about 12% at 1.293μm. Full width at half maximum (FWHM) is 5.8nm and 3dB bandwidth is 304MHz. Dark current is 2 * 10~(-11) A at zero bias voltage. Further improvement of the performance of the RCE PD can be obtained by optimizing of the structure design and MBE growth conditions.

Pressure behavior of Te isoelectronic centers in S-rich ZnS1-xTex alloy

The photoluminescence from ZnS1-xTex alloy with 0 < x < 0.3 was investigated under hydrostatic pressure up to 7 GPa. Two peaks were observed in the alloys with x < 0.01, which are related to excitons bound to isolated Te isoelectronic impurities (Te-1 centers) and Te pairs (Te-2 centers), respectively. Only the Te-2 related emissions were observed in the alloys with 0.01 < x < 0.03. The emissions in the alloys with 0.03 < x < 0.3 are attributed to the excitons bound to the Te-n (n greater than or equal to 3) cluster centers. The pressure coefficient of the Te-1 related peak is 89(4) meV/GPa, about 40% larger than that of the band gap of ZnS. On the other hand, the pressure coefficient of the Te-2 related emissions is only 52(4) meV/GPa, about 15% smaller than that of the ZnS band gap. A simple Koster-Slater model has been used to explain the different pressure behavior of the Te-1 and Te-2 centers. The pressure coefficient of the Te-3 centers is 62(2) meV/GPa. Then the pressure coefficients of the Te-n centers decrease rapidly with further increasing Te composition.

Large excitation-power dependence of pressure coefficients of InxGa1-xN/InyGa1-yN quantum wells

Excitation-power dependence of hydrostatic pressure coefficients (dE/dP) of InxGa1-xN/InyGa1-yN multiple quantum wells is reported. When the excitation power increases from 1.0 to 33 mW, dE/dP increases from 26.9 to 33.8 meV/GPa, which is an increase by 25%. A saturation behavior of dE/dP with the excitation power is observed. The increment of dE/dP with increasing carrier density is explained by an reduction of the internal piezoelectric field due to an efficient screening effect of the free carriers on the field.

Electron effective mass and resonant polaron effect in CdTe/CdMgTe quantum wells

Cyclotron resonance in CdTe/CdMgTe quantum wells (QWs) was studied. Due to the polaron effect the zero-field effective mass is strongly influenced by the QW width. The experimental data have been described theoretically by taking into account electron-phonon coupling and the nonparabolicity of the conduction band. The subband structure was calculated self-consistently. The best fit was obtained for an electron-phonon coupling constant alpha = 0.3 and bare electron mass of m(b) = 0.092m(0).