Poly(organylsilylene)s — perspective materials for optoelectronics

Poly(organylsilylene)s with their uninterrupted chains of silicon atoms are a new class of materials with significant delocalization of electrons along the polymer chain. Their electronic structure, optical properties, photoconductivity, electroluminescence, and photorefractivity are discussed on the model compound poly[methyl(phenyl)silylene]. Their unusual electrical and optical properties, such as high quantum generation efficiency, high charge-carrier mobility, efficient luminescence, and optical non-linearity, can be utilized in some optoelectronic devices. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work was suported by the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (grant No. A1050901) and by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (grant No. 106/98/0700).     

A diagrammatic method for analysis of GaAs and InP based optoelectronic devices

A modified version of the signal flow graphs method can be applied to reveal the topological structure of physical models describing the operation of optoelectronic devices based on heterostructures comprising A^IIIB^V semiconductor compounds. In particular, this kind of analysis is apt to reveal the presence of closed paths (feedback loops) in the causal make-up of the phenomena underlying function of the devices. The analytical apparatus associated with the diagrams affords a new formulation of criteria for the occurrence of such physical conditions as the bistability or the threshold behaviour. The approach is illustrated on the instances of injection semiconductor laser, nonlinear Fabry-Perot resonator, self-electro-optic effect device and semiconductor laser optical amplifier. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998 Support of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (project No. 102/99/0341) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Testing of resonant tunneling double barrier heterostructures by BEEM/BEES

This work shows how ballistic electron emission microscopy and spectroscopy (BEEM/BEES) can be used for study of the tunneling double barrier heterostructures. From positions of resonant levels follows that roughness at the interfaces is present. The variation of the thickness of the well atributed to the existed roughness is estimated using simple calculation. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work is partly supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic under grant No. 102/97/0427.     

CVD diamond films for electronics

Mechanical, optical, thermal and electronic properties of diamond films and chemical vapour deposition (CVD) techniques are briefly reviewed. Some spectroscopical methods for the characterization of CVD diamond films are described (optical absorption, photothermal deflection spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance), together with our recent results on investigation of electronic properties of the main defects in this material, relevant to the application of CVD diamond films for the future electronic devices. Presented at the 6th Joint Seminar “Development of Materials Science in Research and Education”, Karlštejn, Czech Republic, 17–19 September 1996. This work was supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, Grant No. 202/06/0446 and by the NATO Scientific Exchange Programme, HTECH.LG 940890 and NFWO (National Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Orderzoek, Brussel) Project G.0014.96.     

Charge screening around Si dopant atoms in GaAs by X-STM

In this contribution we show that the screening effect around the Si dopant atoms in GaAs can be observed not only at low temperature, as reported earlier, but also at room temperature. Presented at the VIII-th Symposium on Surface Physics, Třešt’ Castle, Czech Republic, June 28 – July 2, 1999. This work was supported by program KONTAKT 090 and by GACR Project No. 102/99/0415.     

Strained In x Ga1−x As/GaAs multiple quantum wells grown by MOVPE

Luminescence properties of strained In _x Ga_1−x As/GaAs multiple quantum wells of different thickness and In content, prepared by metal organic vapour phase epitaxy were studied. The influence of the quantum well material composition on the shape of luminescence spectra was investigated. The experimental results were fitted by the Model Solid Theory. This fit was improved by the use of adjustedQ parameter. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work was supported by Grant Agency of Czech Republic under grants numbers 202/98/0074, 102/99/0414 and Grant Agency of Academy of Sciences No. A 10110807/1998.     

Effect of holmium addition during LPE growth on the properties of InP and GaInAsP layers

The influence of holmium addition during the liquid phase epitaxial growth (LPE) on the optoelectronic properties of InP and GaInAsP semiconductor layers has been studied. Series of InP and GaInAsP layer samples have been prepared by LPE from the melt containing 0–0.5 wt.% of the Ho. The samples were examined by different diagnostic techniques. Hall effect, capacitance-voltage curves and photoluminescence spectra showed the dramatic impact of the Ho admixture on the carrier and residual donor concentrations. The carrier density was reduced by two-and-a-half orders of magnitude and photoluminescence spectra became markedly narrowed and their fine features were resolved. The observed effects are attributed to holmium acting as a very efficient gettering agent with regard to shallow donors. Presented at the 6th Joint Seminar “Development of Materials Science in Research and Education”, Karlštejn, Czech Republic, 17–19 September 1996. This work has been supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, project No. 102/96/1238.     

Preparation and properties of Er and Yb doped InP-based semiconductor compounds

In this paper we pursue the effect of the erbium and ytterium addition during the liquid phase epitaxial (LPE) growth on physical properties of thin InP layers. Series of InP layer samples were prepared by LPE from the melts containing 0–0.3 wt.% of Er and Yb. The grown layers were examined by the Hall effect andC-V measurements, photoluminescence spectroscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS). We have found that only Yb impurity was incorporated into the lattice of InP layer. With increasing Yb content in the growth melt the layer’s conductivity smoothly changed from n to p type when Yb admixture exceeded certain limit. On the basis of these results we prepared p-n junctions in the InP layers directly doped by Yb, and tested then byC-V measurements. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work has been supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, project No. 102/99/0341.     

Investigation of radial profiles of vibrational and rotational temperatures in nitrogen DC glow discharge

Spatially resolved measurements of vibrational and rotational temperature determined from the N₂(C) nitrogen bands intensities have been performed by means of optical scanner of original construction. It has been found that radial variations of studied bands are independent of pressure and discharge current under our experimental conditions, i.e. in the pressure range (100–300) Pa and for discharge current up to 40 mA. Moreover, it has been found that vibrational as well as rotational temperatures stay almost constant in the radial direction. No radial changes of both temperatures can be explained by good thermal conductivity of the positive column of DC glow discharge. This research was supported by grants: Charles University No. GAUK 194/01, Ministry of Education of Czech Republic MSM 11320002, and Grant Agency of Czech Republic GAČR 202/03/0827. The theme of presented article was included in the EU project No. G1RT-CT-2002-05083 “Plasmatech”.     

Conformational properties of poly(p-Phenylene vinylene)

We investigate the quasiparticle conformational defects (excitons, polarons and bioplarons) in the phenylene vinylene oligomers. The conformations are determined by means of the minimization of the total Hartree-Fock energy calculated at 3–21G level. The infrared vibrational transitions are calculated and the types of vibrations are assigned. The theoretical spectra are in good agreement with the experimental vibrational spectrum of poly(p-phenylene vinylene). Presented at the Czech-Israeli-German Symposium “Dynamical Processes in Condensed Molecular Systems”, Prague, Czech Republic, 26–30 May 1997. The quantum mechanical calculations were performed on the following computers: Power Challenge XL at Prague Supercomputing Centre, Charles University, IBM Power 2 at Supercomputing Centre of the Czech Technical University and Power Challenge XL at Supercomputing Centre Brno. The work is supported by Projects No. 202/94/0453 and 202/97/1016 of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic and by Project No. 155/96 of the Grant Agency of the Charles University.     

Photo-induced charge transfer in poly(methyl-phenylsilylene)

Photoconductivity in rigid polymers is based on complex processes including photo-induced electron transfer, formation of ion pairs and their dissociation in an external electric field. Thus, the charge carrier photogeneration in macromolecules differs largely from the direct band-gap excitation and the formation of free electrons and holes in inorganic materials. The processes mentioned above were studied on a catena silicon polymer, namely poly(methyl-phenylsilylene). Presented at the Czech-Israeli-German Symposium “Dynamical Processes in Condensed Molecular Systems”, Prague, Czech Republic, 26–30 May 1997. This work was supported in part by the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Grant No. 45007). Additional support was provided in the framework of the Bilateral Scientific-Technical Cooperation between the Czech Republic and Federal Republic of Germany, project Photo/Electro-Respondent Materials (KONTAKT, No. ME 087 and FKZ-Nr. TSR-005-95).     

Electrooptical properties of InP epitaxial layers grown with rare-earth admixture

The influence of rare-earth (RE) elements (Ho, Er and Nd) addition during the LPE growth, on electrooptical properties of InP layers is reported. Temperature dependent Hall effect and capacitance-voltage curves show quite a dramatic impact of Er and Nd on shallow impurity and free-carrier concentrations: they were decreased by as much as three orders of magnitude. The background concentration of both donors and acceptors decrease with increasing of RE content in the melt up to concentrations of about 0.25 wt.%. Low-temperature photoluminescence (PL) spectra have been measured for various levels of excitation power and temperature. The major manifestation of the RE admixture is the pronounced narrowing of PL curves and the corresponding appearence of fine spectral features. Temperature and excitation dependences of shallow acceptor related bands of InP:Nd layers are discussed in more detail. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work has been supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, project No. 102/99/0341, and by the project KSK 1010601 of the Academy of Sciences.     

Model of free charge generation in polymers

A time solution of the excimer-ion pair system is presented here with a special attention to the time asymptote. Presented at the Czech-Israeli-German Symposium “Dynamical Processes in Condensed Molecular Systems”, Prague, Czech Republic, 26–30 May 1997. This work was supported by the grant No. C 1050601 of the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.     

Ab-initio theory of the CPP-magnetoconductance

The current-perpendicular-to-plane (CPP) magnetoconductance of a trilayer consisting of a spacer sandwiched between two ideal leads is described on anab initio level. We employ the transmission matrix formulation of the conductance within the framework of the spin-polarized surface Green function technique as formulated in terms of the tight-binding linear muffin-tin orbital method. The formalism is extended to the case of lateral supercells in each layer with random arrangements of atoms which allows to treat both the ballistic and diffusive transports on equal footing. The application is made to fcc-based Co/Cu/Co(001) trilayers. Presented at the VIII-th Symposium on Surface Physics, Třešt’ Castle, Czech Republic, June 28 – July 2, 1999. Financial support for this work was provided by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Project No. 202/97/0598), the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Project A1010829), the Center for the Computational Materials Science in Vienna (GZ 45.442 and GZ 45.420), the Austrian BMWV (AKTION WTZ-?sterreich-Tschechien I.23), MŠMT ČR (Project COST P3.70), and the TMR Network ‘Interface Magnetism’ of the European Commission (Contract No. EMRX-CT96-0089).     

A contribution to the characterization of laser-hardened steel surfaces

The article deals with the possibility to characterize the laser heat-treatment of steel surface by means of X-ray diffraction and microhardness measurements. For tensometric analysis the X-ray one-tilt method with no reference substance was used. It is shown that hardened surface layers of the carbon steel are affected by compressions reaching in the middle of the laser beam track up to ≈ 350 MPa. The microhardness increased by as much as 350 %. Presented at the 6th Joint Seminar “Development of Materials Science in Research and Education”, Karlštejn, Czech Republic, 17–19 September 1996. This research is a part of the research project supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (Grant No. 106/95/0080).     

Preparation and properties of thick not intentionally doped GaInP(As)/GaAs layers for optoelectronic applications

We report on liquid phase epitaxial growth of thick layers of GaInP(As) lattice matched to GaAs. Layers with thicknesses up to 7 μm were prepared in multi melt bin, step-cooling, one-phase configuration. Unintentionally doped layers, grown from moderate purity starting materials show significant decrease in the residual impurity level when erbium was added into the melt. Fundamental electrical and optical properties of the layers were investigated. Presented at the 1st Czech-Chinese Workshop “Advanced Materials for Optoelectronics”, Prague, Czech Republic, June 13–17, 1998. This work was partially supported by the Grant Agency of the Acad. Sci. CR under contract GAAV No. A 1010807/1998.     

Transient binary nucleation from ethanol-hexanol vapour

We study condensation of ethanol-hexanol vapour by numerical solution of kinetic equations. The number of droplets formed in unit volume is computed within self-consistent classical model. It is shown that formation of ethanol-rich droplets prevails at the initial stage of nucleation process, but in the stationary state formation of droplets near the saddle point (on cluster formation energy surface) plays the dominant role. Presented at the 6th Joint Seminar “Development of Materials Science in Research and Education”, Karlštejn, Czech Republic, 17–19 September 1996. This work was supported by Grant No. A1010615 of the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.     

Spectroscopy of Ce3+-doped and Ce3+-concentrated scintillators

Institute of Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Cukrovarnicka 10, 16200 Prague 6, Czech Republic. Published in Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vo. 62, No. 5, pp. 71–77, September–October, 1995.     

Random-hole optical fiber evanescent-wave gas sensing

Research on development of optical gas sensors based on evanescent-wave absorption in random-hole optical fibers is described. A process to produce random-hole optical fibers was recently developed that uses a novel in situ bubble formation technique. Gas molecules that exhibit characteristic vibrational absorption lines in the near-IR region that correspond to the transmission window for silica optical fiber have been detected through the evanescent field of the guided mode in the pore region. The presence of the gas molecules in the holes of the fiber appears as a loss at wavelengths that are characteristic of the particular gas species present in the holes. An experimental setup was constructed with these holey fibers for detection of acetylene gas. The results clearly demonstrate the characteristic absorptions in the optical spectra that correspond to the narrow-line absorptions of the acetylene gas, and this represents what is to our knowledge the first report of random-hole fiber gas sensing in the literature.