Effects of hydrostatic pressure on ionized donor bound exciton states in strained wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1−xN cylindrical quantum dots

Based on the effective-mass approximation and variational procedure, ionized donor bound exciton (D⁺, X) states confined in strained wurtzite (WZ) GaN/Al_xGa_1-xN cylindrical (disk-like) quantum dots (QDs) with finite-height potential barriers are investigated, with considering the influences of the built-in electric field (BEF), the biaxial strain dependence of material parameters and the applied hydrostatic pressure. The Schrödinger equation via the proper choice of the donor bound exciton trial wave function is solved. The behaviors of the binding energy of (D⁺, X) and the optical transition associated with (D⁺, X) are examined at different pressures for different QD sizes and donor positions. In our calculations, the effective masses of electron and hole, dielectric constants, phonon frequencies, energy gaps, and piezoelectric polarizations are taken into account as functions of biaxial strain and hydrostatic pressure. Our results show that the hydrostatic pressure, the QD size and the donor position have a remarkable influence on (D⁺, X) states. The hydrostatic pressure generally increases the binding energy of (D⁺, X). However, the binding energy tends to decrease for the QDs with large height and lower Al composition (x<0.3) if the donor is located at z₀≤0. The optical transition energy has a blue-shift (red-shift) if the hydrostatic pressure (QD height) increases. For the QDs with small height and low Al composition, the hydrostatic pressure dependence of the optical transition energy is more obvious. Furthermore, the relationship between the radiative decay time and hydrostatic pressure (QD height) is also investigated. It is found that the radiative decay time increases with pressure and the increment tendency is more prominent for the QDs with large height. The radiative decay time increases exponentially reaching microsecond order with increasing QD height. The physical reason has been analyzed in depth.     

Exciton states and optical transitions in InGaN/GaN quantum dot nanowire heterostructures: Strong built-in electric field and dielectric mismatch effects

Considering the strong built-in electric field (BEF), dielectric-constant mismatch and 3D confinement of the electron and hole, the exciton states and interband optical transitions in [0 0 0 1]-oriented Ga-rich wurtzite In_xGa_1−xN/GaN strained quantum dot (QD) nanowire heterostructures are investigated theoretically using a variational approach under the effective mass approximation. We find that the strong BEF gives rise to an obvious reduction of the effective band gap of QDs and leads to a remarkable electron-hole spatial separation. The BEF, QD height and radius, and dielectric mismatch effects have a significant influence on exciton binding energy, electron interband optical transitions, and the radiative decay time. Our calculations show that the radiative decay time of the redshifted transitions is large and increases almost exponentially when the QD height increases, which is in good agreement with the previous experimental and theoretical results.     

Excitonic optical absorption in wurtzite InGaN/GaN quantum wells

Within the framework of the effective-mass and envelope function theory, exciton states and optical properties in wurtzite (WZ) InGaN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) are investigated theoretically considering the built-in electric field effects. Numerical results show that the built-in electric field, well width and in composition have obvious influences on exciton states and optical properties in WZ InGaN/GaN QWs. The built-in electric field caused by polarizations leads to a remarkable reduction of the ground-state exciton binding energy, the interband transition energy and the integrated absorption probability in WZ InGaN/GaN QWs with any well width and In composition. In particular, the integrated absorption probability is zero in WZ InGaN/GaN QWs with any In composition and well width L > 4 nm. In addition, the competition effects between quantum confinement and the built-in electric field (between quantum size and the built-in electric field) on exciton states and optical properties have also been investigated.     

应变纤锌矿GaN/A10.15Ga0.85N柱形量子点的光学性质:流体静压力效应

在有效质量近似下,考虑强的内建电场和应变对材料参量的影响,变分研究了流体静压力对有限高势垒应变纤锌矿GaN/Al_0.15Ga_0.85N柱形量子点中重空穴激子的结合能、发光波长和电子空穴复合率的影响.数值结果表明,激子结合能和电子空穴复合率随流体静压力的增大而近线性增大,发光波长随流体静压力的增大而单调减小.在量子点尺寸较小的情况下,流体静压力对激子结合能和电子空穴复合率的影响更明显.由于应变效应,为了获得有效的电子-空穴复合过程,GaN量子点的高度必须小于5.5 nm.     

应变纤锌矿GaN/A10.15Ga0.85N柱形量子点的光学性质：流体静压力效应

在有效质量近似下,考虑强的内建电场和应变对材料参量的影响,变分研究了流体静压力对有限高势垒应变纤锌矿GaN/Al0.15Ga0.85N柱形量子点中重空穴激子的结合能、发光波长和电子空穴复合率的影响.数值结果表明,激子结合能和电子空穴复合率随流体静压力的增大而近线性增大,发光波长随流体静压力的增大而单调减小.在量子点尺寸较小的情况下,流体静压力对激子结合能和电子空穴复合率的影响更明显.由于应变效应,为了获得有效的电子-空穴复合过程,GaN量子点的高度必须小于5.5 nm.     

Finite barrier width effects on exciton states and optical properties in wurtzite InGaN/GaN quantum well

Exciton states and optical properties in wurtzite (WZ) InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) are investigated theoretically, considering finite barrier width and built-in electric field effects. Numerical results show that when the barrier width increases, the ground-state exciton binding energy, the interband transition energy and the integrated absorption probability increase first and then they are insensitive to the variation of the barrier width. For any barrier width, the ground-state exciton binding energy and the integrated absorption probability have a maximum when the well width is 1 nm; moreover, the integrated absorption probability goes to zero when the well width is larger than 6 nm. In addition, the competition effects between the built-in electric field and quantum confinement are also investigated in the WZ InGaN/GaN QW.     

Influence of Mg Composition on Optical Properties of Exciton Confinement in Strained Wurtzite ZnO/Mg_x Zn_(1-x) O Cylindrical Quantum Dots

Based on the effective-mass approximation and variational approach, excitonic optical properties are investigated theoretically in strained wurtzite (WZ) ZnO/Mg x Zn 1-x O cylindrical quantum dots (QDs) for four different Mg compositions: x = 0.08, 0.14, 0.25, and 0.33, with considering a three-dimensional carrier confinement in QDs and a strong built-in electric field effect due to the piezoelectricity and spontaneous polarization. The ground-state exciton binding energy, the interband emission wavelength, and the radiative lifetime as functions of the QD structural parameters (height and radius) are calculated in detail. The computations are performed in the case of finite band offset. Numerical results elucidate that Mg composition has a significant influence on the exciton states and optical properties of ZnO/Mg x Zn 1 x O QDs. The ground-state exciton binding energy increases with increasing Mg composition and the increment tendency is more prominent for small height QDs. As Mg composition increases, the interband emission wavelength has a blue-shift if the dot height L 3.5 nm, but the interband emission wavelength has a red-shift when L 3.5 nm. Furthermore, the radiative lifetime increases rapidly with increasing Mg composition if the dot height L 3 nm and the increment tendency is more prominent for large height QDs. The physical reason has been analyzed in depth.     

Radiative life time of an exciton confined in a strained GaN/Ga1-xAlxN cylindrical dot: built-in electric field effects

The binding energy of an exciton in a wurtzite GaN/GaAlN strained cylindrical quantum dot is investigated theoretically.The strong built-in electric field due to the spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations of a GaN/GaAlN quantum dot is included.Numerical calculations are performed using a variational procedure within the single band effective mass approximation.Valence-band anisotropy is included in our theoretical model by using different hole masses in different spatial directions.The exciton oscillator strength and the exciton lifetime for radiative recombination each as a function of dot radius have been computed.The result elucidates that the strong built-in electric field influences the oscillator strength and the recombination life time of the exciton.It is observed that the ground state exciton binding energy and the interband emission energy increase when the cylindrical quantum dot height or radius is decreased,and that the exciton binding energy,the oscillator strength and the radiative lifetime each as a function of structural parameters (height and radius) sensitively depend on the strong built-in electric field.The obtained results are useful for the design of some opto-photoelectronic devices.     

Recombination dynamics of free and bound excitons in bulk GaN

We report new data on the transient photoluminescence behaviour of free and donor bound excitons in high quality bulk GaN material grown by HVPE. With 266 nm photoexcitation the no-phonon free exciton has a short decay time, about 100 ps at 2 K, assigned to nonradiative surface recombination. The LO replicas of the free exciton have a much longer decay at 2 K, about 1.4 ns, believed to be a lower bound for the bulk radiative lifetimes of the free excitons at 2 K. The donor bound exciton no-phonon lines exhibit a rather short (about 300 ps) nonexponential decay at 2 K, which appears to be dominated by a scattering process. The corresponding LO replicas and the two-electron transitions have a much longer decay. From the latter, the lower bound of the radiative lifetime of the O- and Si-bound excitons are 1800 ps and 1100 ps, respectively.     

The kinetics of exciton photoluminescence in mercuric iodide

Time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) of red mercuric iodide single crystal is measured at low temperatures and its two-photon luminescence is measured at room temperature. Sharp near band-gap luminescence is observed around 530 nm and was ascribed to radiative annihilation of free and bound excitons; the phonon replica of exciton luminescence are found between 533 and 540 nm at low temperatures. TRPL experiment reveals that near band-gap luminescence comprises fast and slow decay components and shows the different relaxation processes between free and bound exciton annihilation. Luminescence of bound excitons steeply lowers with increasing temperature and disappears about 40 K. A luminescence tail band is observed around 540 nm that is ascribed to defects in the anion sublattice. The temporal behavior of the tail band is described by rate equations very well. A broad luminescent band appears at 630 nm. The decay curves suggest that the luminescence is ascribed to the radiative recombination of donor-acceptor pairs and there are two kinds of mechanisms to control the decay. At room temperature, a luminescent band appears at the band-gap region, which shows the band-gap at room temperature is about 2.125 eV.     

Influence of Mg Composition on Optical Properties of Exciton Confinement in Strained Wurtzite ZnO/MgxZn1-xO Cylindrical Quantum Dots

Based on the effective-mass approximation and variational approach, excitonic optical properties are investigated theoretically in strained wurtzite (WZ) ZnO/Mg_xZn_1-xO cylindrical quantum dots (QDs) for four different Mg compositions: x=0.08, 0.14, 0.25, and 0.33, with considering a three-dimensional carrier confinement in QDs and a strong built-in electric field effect due to the piezoelectricity and spontaneous polarization. The ground-state exciton binding energy, the interband emission wavelength, and the radiative lifetime as functions of the QD structural parameters (height and radius) are calculated in detail. The computations are performed in the case of finite band offset. Numerical results elucidate that Mg composition has a significant influence on the exciton states and optical properties of ZnO/Mg_xZn_1-xO QDs. The ground-state exciton binding energy increases with increasing Mg composition and the increment tendency is more prominent for small height QDs. As Mg composition increases, the interband emission wavelength has a blue-shift if the dot height L<3.5 nm, but the interband emission wavelength has a red-shift when L>3.5 nm. Furthermore, the radiative lifetime increases rapidly with increasing Mg composition if the dot height L>3 nm and the increment tendency is more prominent for large height QDs. The physical reason has been analyzed in depth.     

Optical properties of Quantum Disks: Real density matrix approach

We show how to compute the optical response of a Quantum Disk (QDisk) to an electromagnetic wave as a function of the incident wave polarization, in the energetic region of interband transitions. Both the TM and TE polarization in guided-wave geometry are analyzed. The method uses the microscopic calculation of Quantum Disk eigenfunctions and the macroscopic real density matrix approach to compute the effective QDisk susceptibility, taking into account the valence band structure of the QDisk material and the Coulomb interaction between the electron and the hole. Analytical expressions for the QDisk susceptibility are obtained for a certain model electron — hole potential. Using these expressions, all optical functions can be computed. Results for the absorption coefficient are computed for InAs/GaAs QDisks. Fair agreement with experiments is obtained.     

Exciton in wurtzite GaN/AlxGa1−xN coupled quantum dots

Based on effective-mass approximation, we present a three-dimensional study of the exciton in GaN/Al_xGa_1−xN vertically coupled quantum dots (QDs) by a variational approach. The strong built-in electric field due to the piezoelectricity and spontaneous polarization is considered. The relationship between exciton states and structural parameters of wurtzite GaN/Al_xGa_1−xN coupled QDs is studied in detail. Our numerical results show that the strong built-in electric field in the GaN/Al_xGa_1−xN strained coupled QDs leads to a marked reduction of the effective band gap of GaN QDs. The exciton binding energy, the QD transition energy and the electron-hole recombination rate are reduced if barrier thickness L^AlGaN is increased. The sizes of QDs have a significant influence on the exciton state and interband optical transitions in coupled QDs.     

The optical properties of ZnO/ZnMgO single quantum well grown by P-MBE

In this paper, ZnO/Zn_0.9Mg_0.1O single quantum well (SQW) structures were fabricated on c-plane sapphire (Al₂O₃) substrate by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy (P-MBE). The photoluminescence (PL) peak of the SQW shifted from 3.31 to 3.37 eV as the well layer thickness was decreased from 6 to 2 nm. The spectral linewidth increases with temperature due to the scattering of excitons with acoustic and optical phonons. The transition energy of the localized exciton in the ZnO/Mg_0.1Zn_0.9O SQW with well width of 3 nm was found to be about 3.407 eV at 80 K, consistent with theoretical calculation. The first subband energies in the conduction and valence band were calculated to be 49 and 11 meV, respectively.     

The role of different linear and non-linear channels of relaxation in scintillator non-proportionality

The non-proportional dependence of a scintillator's light yield on primary particle energy is believed to be influenced crucially by the interplay of non-linear kinetic terms in the radiative and non-radiative decay of excitations versus locally deposited excitation density. A calculation of energy deposition, −dE/dx, along the electron track for NaI is presented for an energy range from several electron-volt to 1 MeV. Such results can be used to specify an initial excitation distribution, if diffusion is neglected. An exactly solvable two-channel (exciton and hole(electron)) model containing 1st and 2nd order kinetic terms is constructed and used to illustrate important features seen in non-proportional light-yield curves, including a dependence on pulse shaping (detection gate width).     

Influence of Mg content on optical properties of exciton confinement in wurtzite ZnO/MgxZn1−xO coupled quantum dots

Based on the framework of effective-mass approximation and variational approach, optical properties of exciton are investigated theoretically in ZnO/Mg_xZn_1−xO vertically coupled quantum dots (QDs), with considering the three-dimensional confinement of electron and hole pair and the strong built-in electric field effects. The exciton binding energy, the emission wavelength and the oscillator strength as functions of the structural parameters (the dot height, the barrier thickness between the coupled wurtzite ZnO QDs and Mg content x in the barrier layers) is calculated in detail. The results elucidate that Mg content have a significant influence on the exciton state and optical properties of ZnO coupled QDs. When Mg content x increases, the strong built-in electric field increases and leads to the redshift of the effective band gap of the Mg_xZn_1−xO layer. These theoretical results are useful for design and application of some important photoelectronic devices constructed by using ZnO strained QDs.     

Characterization of a-plane orientation ZnO film grown on GaN/Sapphire template by pulsed laser deposition

In this study, the authors have investigated the structural and optical properties of ZnO layer grown by pulsed laser deposition on GaN/r-plane sapphire. X-ray diffraction results demonstrate the ZnO film to be highly preferentially deposited at a-axis orientation; the different rocking curve values along the two orthogonal directions indicate the low C_2v symmetry in the growth a-plane ZnO. From free stress to large tensile stress (about 1.34 × 10⁹ Pa) distribution along the growth direction of ZnO is revealed by visible Raman mapping spectra. The enhanced significantly high-order longitudinal-optical (LO) phonon modes up to 4th and no TO phonons have been observed in Raman spectrum under UV 325 nm by resonance conditions; an intense and broad disorder activated surface phonon mode is also observed, resulting from the increased disorder on the film surface with stripe-like growth features. Low-temperature photoluminescence measurements reveal that the band-edge emission of ZnO is dominated by neutral donor-bound exciton and free electrons to neutral acceptor emissions. Interfacial microstructure of ZnO/GaN has been examined by transmission electron microscopy, with the epitaxial relationship () ZnO//() GaN. All these results indicated that GaN template played an important role in the growth of ZnO film, with full advantage of small lattice mismatch.     

The correlation energies and nonlinear optical absorptions of an exciton in a disc-like quantum dot

Using exact diagonalization techniques, the low-lying states of an exciton, and the linear and nonlinear optical absorptions in a disc-like quantum dot are theoretically studied. The numerical results for the typical GaAs material show the so-called quantum size effect. Also, our study is restricted on the transition between the S state (L = 0) and the P state (L = 1). The optical absorption coefficients are greatly enhanced because of the induced size confinement. Meantime, we find that the total optical absorption coefficient is about two times bigger than that obtained by without considering exciton effects. Additionally, the optical absorption saturation intensity can be controlled by the incident optical intensity I.     

纤锌矿InGaN staggered量子阱中的激子态和光学性质

本文将基于有效质量近似下的变分法,理论研究了纤锌矿InGaN/GaN staggered量子阱中的激子态和光学性质.数值结果显示了InGaN量子阱中的量子尺寸和staggered受限垒对束缚于量子阱中的激子态和光学性质有着明显的影响.当阱宽增加时,量子受限效应减弱,激子结合能降低,带间发光波长增加.另一方面,当量子阱中staggered受限势增加时,量子受限效应增强,激子结合能升高,带间发光波长降低.本文的理论结果证明了可以通过调节staggered垒高和量子尺寸来调控纤锌矿InGaN staggered量子阱中的激子态和光学性质.     

Investigation of electron energy states in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells

Blue light emitting diodes (LED) consisting of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) have been grown by metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on sapphire. The width of the quantum wells (InGaN) was maintained in the range of 3–5 nm with a barrier of 10–15 nm of GaN. Various diagnostic techniques were employed for the characterization of the InGaN/GaN heterostructure. Carrier concentration depth profile from C–V measurements demonstrated the presence of MQWs. The higher value of built-in voltage (15 V) determined from C⁻²–V plot also supported the presence of MQWs as assumed to alter the space-charge region width and hence the intercept voltage. Arrhenius plots due to DLTS spectra from the device revealed at least four energy states (eV) 0.1, 0.12, 0.15 and 0.17, respectively in the quantum wells, with respect to the barrier. Further the photoluminescence spectrum showed an InGaN-based broad band centered at 2.9 eV and the GaN peak at 3.4 eV. A comparison of the PL spectrum with the literature helped to estimate the indium content in the QW (InGaN) and its width to be ∼13% and ∼3 nm, respectively. The results were consistent with the DLTS findings.