Structure and photoluminescence of InGaAs self-assembled quantum dots grown on InP(001)

Molecular beam epitaxy has been used for growing InGaAs self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) in InAlAs on an InP(001) substrate. Nominal deposition of 9.6 monolayers of In0.9Ga0.1As results in QDs of similar to 6.5 nm high with an areal density of 3.3 X 10(11) cm(-2). Conspicuous bimodal size distribution is identified, and is responsible for the observed QDs photoluminescence (PL) emission with two peaks at 0.627 and 0.657 eV. Good agreement is achieved between the observed PL peak energies and calculated results. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S00218979(99)00101-2].

Theory of terahertz-photocurrent resonances in miniband superlattices

The currents of de and ac components and their phase-angle cosines for a superlattice under a direct bias and alternating field are calculated with the balance equations. It is found that the de currents as functions of the direct field show resonance peaks at the fields corresponding to the Bloch frequency equal to n omega. With increasing alternating field intensity the resonance peaks of higher harmonic increase, and simultaneously the first peak caused by the de field decreases. The results are in good agreement with the experimental results, indicating that this resonance can be understood in terms of electron acceleration within the miniband, i.e., it is a bulk superlattice effect, rather than caused by the electric-field localization mechanism (Wannier Stark ladder). The phase-angle cosine for the first harmonic cos phi(1) becomes negative when the Bloch frequency increases to be larger than the frequency of the ac field omega, and it also shows resonance peaks at the resonance frequencies n omega. The negative cos phi(1) may cause the energy transferred to the alternating field, i.e., oscillation of the system.

Intrasubband and intersubband transitions in lightly and heavily doped GaAs/AlGa1-xAs multiple quantum wells

We use a polarizer to investigate quantum-well infrared absorption, and report experimental results as follows. The intrasubband transition was observed in GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs multiple quantum wells (MQWs) when the incident infrared radiation (IR) is polarized parallel to the MQW plane. According to the selection rule, an intrasubband transition is forbidden. Up to now, most studies have only observed the intersubband transition between two states with opposite parity. However, our experiment shows not only the intersubband transitions, but also the intrasubband transitions. In our study, we also found that for light doping in the well (4x10(18) cm(-3)), the intrasubband transition occurs only in the lowest subband, while for the heavy doping (8x10(18) cm(-3)), such a transition occurs not only in the lowest subband, but also in the first excited one, because of the electron subband filling. Further experimental results show a linear dependence of the intrasubband transition frequency on the root of the well doping density. These data are in good agreement with our numerical results. Thus we strongly suggest that such a transition can be attributed to plasma oscillation. Conversely, when the incident IR is polarized perpendicular to the MQW plane, intersubband-transition-induced signals appear, while the intrasubband-transition-induced spectra disappear for both light and heavy well dopings. A depolarization blueshift was also taken into account to evaluate the intersubband transition spectra at different well dopings. Furthermore, we performed a deep-level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) measurement to determine the subband energies at different well dopings. A good agreement between DLTS, infrared absorption, and numerical calculation was obtained. In our experiment, two important phenomena are noteworthy: (1) The polarized absorbance is one order of magnitude higher than the unpolarized spectra. This puzzling result is well explained in detail. (2) When the IR, polarized perpendicular to the well plane, normally irradiates the 45 degrees-beveled edge of the samples, we only observed intersubband transition spectra. However, the intrasubband transition signals caused by the in-plane electric-field component are significantly absent. The reason is that such in-plane electric-field components can cancel each other out everywhere during the light propagating in the samples. The spectral widths of bound-to-bound and bound-to-continuum transitions were also discussed, and quantitatively compared to the relaxation time tau, which is deduced from the electron mobility. The relaxation times deduced from spectral widths of bound-to-bound and bound-to-continuum transitions are also discussed, and quantitatively compared to the relaxation time deduced from electron mobility. [S0163-1829(98)01912-2].

Oscillatory magneto-conductance in quantum waveguides with lateral multi-barrier structures

The magneto-transport properties of a narrow quantum waveguide with lateral multibarrier modulation are investigated theoretically. It is found that the magnetoconductance as a function of Fermi energy or magnetic field exhibits square-wave-like oscillations. In the presence of magnetic field, the edge states are formed near each barrier and the boundaries. Therefore, the number of edge states increases with the number of lateral barriers, leading to the increase of the propagating modes. On the other hand, owing to the tunneling effect a pair of edge states around the barrier region with opposite moving directions may be coupled and formed a circulating localized state, leading to the quenching of the related propagating states. The resulting dispersion relation exhibits oscillation structures superimposed on the bulk Landau levels. These novel conductance characteristics may provide potential applications to the fabrication of new quantum devices.

Interfacial behaviour of a quantum well electrode/electrolyte: EER spectra of an SQW GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs electrode in HQ+BQ non-aqueous electrolyte

The quantum-confined Stark effect and the Franz-Keldysh oscillation of a single quantum well (SQW) GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs electrode were studied in non-aqueous hydroquinone + benzoquinone solution with electrolyte electroreflectance spectroscopy. By investigation of the relation of the quantum-confined Stark effect and the Franz-Keldysh oscillation with applied external bias, the interfacial behaviour of an SQW electrode was analysed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.

Characterization of self-organized InAs/GaAs quantum dots under strain-induced and temperature-controlled nucleation mechanisms by atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy

Atomic force microscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) has been used to study asymmetric bilayer InAs quantum dot (QD) structures grow by molecular-beam epitaxy on GaAs (001) substrates. The two InAs layers were separated by a 7-nm-thick GaAs spacer layer and were grown at different substrate temperature. We took advantage of the intrinsic nonuniformity of the molecular beams to grow the seed layer with an average InAs coverage of 2.0 ML. Then the seed layer thickness could be divided into three areas: below, around and above the critical thickness of the 2D-3D transition along the 11101 direction of the substrate. Correspondingly, the nucleation mechanisms of the upper InAs layer (UIL) could be also divided into three areas: temperature-controlled, competition between temperature-controlled and strain-induced, and strain-induced (template-controlled) nucleation. Small quantum dots (QDs) with a large density around 5 x 10(10) cm(-2) are found in the temperature-controlled nucleation area. The QD size distributions undergo a bimodal to a unimodal transition with decreasing QD densities in the strain-induced nucleation area, where the QD densities vary following that of the seed layer (templating effect). The optimum QD density with the UIL thickness fixed at 2.4 ML is shown to be around 1.5 x 10(10) cm(-2), for which the QD size distribution is unimodal and PL emission peaks at the longest wavelength. The QDs in the in-between area exhibit a broad size distribution with small QDs and strain-induced large QDs coexisting.

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.

Experimental investigation of slow light phenomenon in photonic crystal waveguide line defect laser

The guide mode whose frequency locates in the band edge in photonic crystal single line defect waveguide has very low group velocity. So the confinement and gain of electromagnetic field in the band edge are strongly enhanced. Photonic crystal waveguide laser is fabricated and the slow light phenomenon is investigated. The laser is pumped by pulsed pumping light at 980nm whose duty ratio is 0.05%. The active layer in photonic crystal slab is InGaAsP multiple quantum well. Light is transimited by a photonic crystal chirp waveguide in one facet of the laser. Then the output light is coupled to a fiber and the character of laser is analysis by an optical spectrometer. It is found that single mode and multimode happens with different power of pumping light. Meanwhile the plane wave expansion and finite-difference time-domain methods are used to simulate the phenomenon of slow light. And the result of the experiment is compared with the theory which proves the slow light results in lasing oscillation.

Influence of dispersive coupling coefficient in microring channel drop filters

Wide transmission dips are observed in the through spectra in microring and racetrack channel drop filters by two-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation. The transmission spectra, which reflect the coupling efficiency, are also calculated from the FDTD output as the pulse just travels one circle inside the resonator. The results indicate that the dips are caused by the dispersion of the coupling coefficient between the input waveguide and the resonator. In addition, a near-zero channel drop on resonance and a large channel drop off resonance are observed due to the near zero coupling coefficient and a large coupling coefficient, respectively. If the width of the input waveguide is different from that of the ring resonator, the oscillation of the coupling coefficient can be greatly suppressed.

A novel fast lock-in phase-locked loop frequency synthesizer with direct frequency presetting circuit

This paper proposes a novel, fast lock-in, phase-locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizer. The synthesizer includes a novel mixed-signal voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) with a direct frequency presetting circuit. The frequency presetting circuit can greatly speed up the lock-in process by accurately the presetting oscillation frequency of the VCO. We fully integrated the synthesizer in standard 0.35 mu m, 3.3 V complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) process. The entire chip area is only 0.4 mm(2). The measured results demonstrate that the synthesizer can speed up the lock-in process significantly and the lock-in time is less than 10 mu s over the entire oscillation frequency range. The measured phase noise of the synthesizer is -85 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz offset. The synthesizer avoids the tradeoff between the lock-in speed and the phase noise/spurs. The synthesizer monitors the chip temperature and automatically compensates for the variation in frequency with temperature.

Short range scattering mechanism of type-II GaSb/GaAs quantum dots on the transport properties of two-dimensional electron gas

We have studied the scattering process of AlGaAs/GaAs two-dimensional electron gas with the nearby embedded GaSb/GaAs type-II quantum dots (QDs) at low temperature. Quantum Hall effect and Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation were performed to measure the electron density n(2D), the transport lifetime tau(t) and the quantum lifetime tau(q) under various biased gate voltage. By comparing measured results of QDs sample with that of reference sample without embedded QDs, mobilities (transport mobility mu(t) and quantum mobility mu(q)) dominated by GaSb QDs scattering were extracted as functions of n(2D). It was found that the ratios of tau(t) to tau(q) were varying within the range of 1-4, implying the scattering mechanism belonging to the sort of short-range interaction. In the framework of Born approximation, a scattering model considering rectangular-shaped potential with constant barrier height was successfully applied to explain the transport experimental data. In addition, an oscillating ratio of tau(t)/tau(q) with the increasing n(2D) was predicted in the model.

Seed bubbles stabilize flow and heat transfer in parallel microchannels

Seed bubbles are generated on microheaters located at the microchannel upstream and driven by a pulse voltage signal, to improve flow and heat transfer performance in microchannels. The present study investigates how seed bubbles stabilize flow and heat transfer in micro-boiling systems. For the forced convection flow, when heat flux at the wall surface is continuously increased, flow instability is self-sustained in microchannels with large oscillation amplitudes and long periods. Introduction of seed bubbles in time sequence improves flow and heat transfer performance significantly. Low frequency (similar to 10 Hz) seed bubbles not only decrease oscillation amplitudes of pressure drops, fluid inlet and outlet temperatures and heating surface temperatures, but also shorten oscillation cycle periods. High frequency (similar to 100 Hz or high) seed bubbles completely suppress the flow instability and the heat transfer system displays stable parameters of pressure drops, fluid inlet and outlet temperatures and heating surface temperatures. Flow visualizations show that a quasi-stable boundary interface from spheric bubble to elongated bubble is maintained in a very narrow distance range at any time. The seed bubble technique almost does not increase the pressure drop across microsystems, which is thoroughly different from those reported in the literature. The higher the seed bubble frequency, the more decreased heating surface temperatures are. A saturation seed bubble frequency of 1000-2000 Hz can be reached, at which heat transfer enhancement attains the maximum degree, inferring a complete thermal equilibrium of vapor and liquid phases in microchannels. Benefits of the seed bubble technique are the stabilization of flow and heat transfer, decreasing heating surface temperatures and improving temperature uniformity of the heating surface.

Effect of pulse heating parameters on the microscale bubble dynamics at a microheater surface

We study the effects of pulse heating parameters on the micro bubble behavior of a platinum microheater (100 mu m x 20 mu m) immersed in a methanol pool. The experiment covers the heat fluxes of 10-37 MW/m(2) and pulse frequencies of 25-500 Hz. The boiling incipience is initiated at the superheat limit of methanol, corresponding to the homogeneous nucleation. Three types of micro boiling patterns are identified. The first type is named as the bubble explosion and regrowth, consisting of a violent explosive boiling and shrinking, followed by a slower bubble regrowth and subsequent shrinking, occurring at lower heat fluxes. The second type, named as the bubble breakup and attraction, consists of the violent explosive boiling, bubble breakup and emission, bubble attraction and coalescence process, occurring at higher heat fluxes than those of the first type. The third type, named as the bubble size oscillation and large bubble formation, involves the initial explosive boiling, followed by a short periodic bubble growth and shrinking. Then the bubble continues to increase its size, until a constant bubble size is reached which is larger than the microheater length. 

Gasoline-range hydrocarbon synthesis over cobalt-based Fischer-Tropsch catalysts supported onSiO2/HZSM-5

Two types of SiO2 with different mesopore size and HZSM-5 zeolite were used to prepare hybrid supported cobalt-based catalysts. The textual and structural properties of the catalysts were studied using N-2 physisorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and H-2 temperature-programmed reduction (TPR) techniques. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) performances of the catalysts were carried out in a fixed-bed reactor. The combination effects of the meso- and micropores of the supports as well as the interaction between supports and cobalt particles on FTS activity are discussed. The results indicate that the catalyst supported on the tailor-made SiO2 and HZSM-5 hybrid maintained both meso- and micropore pores during the preparation process without HZSM-5 particles agglomerating. The mesopores provided quick mass transfer channels, while the micropores contributed to high metal dispersion and accelerated hydrocracking/hydroisomerization reaction rate. High CO conversion of 83.9% and selectivity to gasoline-range hydrocarbons (C-5-C-12) of 55%, including more than 10% isoparaffins, were achieved simultaneously on this type of catalyst.

Radiation-matter oscillations in attosecond polarization beats using twin color-locked noisy lights

Based on the phase-conjugate polarization interference between two one-photon processes. When the laser has broadband linewidth, the sum-frequency polarization beat (SFPB) signal shows the autocorrelation of SFPB exhibits hybrid radiation-matter detuning terahertz damping oscillation. As an attosecond ultrafast modulation process, it can be extended intrinsically to any sum-frequency of energy-levels. It hits been also found that the asymmetric behaviors of the polarization beat signals result from the unbalanced dispersion effects, (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.