Photoreflectance study on the photovoltaic effect in InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell

To investigate the effect of quantum dot (QD) layers on the photovoltaic process of InAs/GaAs QD solar cell (QDSC), QD layers were embedded in conventional GaAs p-n junction SC (GaAs SC) structures. The photoreflectance (PR) was examined at different temperatures (T) and excitation light intensities (I_ex) to investigate the photovoltaic effects through observation of the Franz-Keldysh oscillations (FKOs) in the PR spectra. The evaluated the p-n junction electric fields (F_pn) of the InAs QDSC was different from that of the GaAs SC. Moreover, InAs QDSC show that the different photovoltaic behaviors compared with GaAs SC by varying I_ex and T. From these considerations, we suggest that the different photovoltaic behaviors are caused by the effect of the additional photo-carrier generation in InAs QD layers resulting in enhancement of the field screening effect in F_pn.     

Raman study of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cells

We report polarized and resonant Raman study of InAs/GaAs quantum dot solar cell (QDSC) structures. Raman spectra obtained from the top surfaces of the samples suggested that the formation of InAs QDs induced tensile strain in the overgrown GaAs layers. Furthermore, a longitudinal optical phonon-plasmon (LPP) coupled modes were observed in the p-type GaAs layers. The tensile strain was increased with an increase in the QD size. The hole concentrations estimated by fitting the individual LPP coupled modes were in the range of 2.4–3.5 × 10¹⁸ cm^?3. Resonant Raman spectra obtained from the cleaved sides, where the QDs were located, showed a 225 cm^?1 mode in parallel polarization configurations. Based on accurate analysis, this mode was identified as the LA(X) phonon of GaAs.     

电场调谐InAs单量子点的发光光谱

采用稳态和时间分辨发光光谱,研究了生长在p-i-n二极管结构内的InAs单量子点发光光谱的电场调谐特性.随着电场强度的增加,观察到量子点中激子发光的Stark 效应.通过选择不同波长的激光线激发量子点样品,发现随着电场强度的增加导致量子点发光强度的减弱,这是由于量子点俘获载流子概率的减小所致,而激子寿命的增加源于电场导致激子的Stark效应. 关键词： InAs单量子点 Stark效应 电子-空穴分离     

InAs quantum dot field effect transistors

We have studied single electron and hole storage in self-assembled InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in GaAs/n-AlGaAs field effect transistors (QD-FETs). We prepared two types of QD-FETs. A single electron and a photo-generated single hole can be stored in each QD in Type 1. In the new Type II, single-electron discharge processes can be controlled by a surface gate voltage (V_g) as well as single-electron storage processes. We demonstrate possible application to novel photo devices and quantum dot memory devices.     

Current instabilities in GaAs/InAs self-aggregated quantum dot structures

Excess current was obtained in GaAs/InAs quantum dot structures at low temperatures and low current levels. This excess current exhibited instabilities with changing the bias, and over the time. It has been concluded that the excess current is a minority injection current connected with recombination through defects originated from the formation of QDs. The instabilities are connected with unstable occupation of energy levels induced by the above defects, which depend on temperature and on the current level.     

The strain relaxation of InAs/GaAs self-organized quantum dot

This paper presents a detailed analysis of the dependence of degree of strain relaxation of the self-organized InAs/GaAs quantum dot on the geometrical parameters. Differently shaped quantum dots arranged with different transverse periods are simulated in this analysis. It investigates the total residual strain energy that stored in the quantum dot and the substrate for all kinds of quantum dots with the same volume, as well as the dependence on both the aspect ratio and transverse period. The calculated results show that when the transverse period is larger than two times the base of the quantum dots, the influence of transverse periods can be ignored. The larger aspect ratio will lead more efficient strain relaxation. The larger angle between the faces and the substrate will lead more efficient strain relaxation. The obtained results can help to understand the shape transition mechanism during the epitaxial growth from the viewpoint of energy, because the strain relaxation is the main driving force of the quantum dot's self-organization.     

Self-organized formation of shell-like InAs/GaAs quantum dot ensembles

Formation of a multimodal quantum dot (QD) ensemble by strained layer epitaxy of InAs on GaAs near the critical value for the onset of the 2D-3D transition is studied. Reflection anisotropy spectroscopy is employed to confirm that a smooth surface is maintained during strained layer growth prior to QD formation. Instantaneous capping after deposition leads to InAs quantum wells with some thickness flucuations. Multimodal QD InAs ensembles form after an at least short growth interruption prior to cap layer deposition. The QDs consist of pure InAs with heights varying in steps of complete InAs monolayers. Related exciton energies indicate a simultaneous increase of both height and lateral extension, i.e. a shell-like increase of sizes. The formation of the multimodal QD ensemble is described by a kinetic approach. A growth scenario is presented where QDs having initially shorter base length stop vertical growth at a smaller height, accounting for the experimentally observed shell-like sub-ensemble structure.     

GaAs基InAs量子点中类氢杂质的束缚能

在有效质量近似下,采用微扰法研究了InAs/GaAs量子点内类氢杂质基态及低激发态的束缚能.受限势采用抛物形势,在二维平面极坐标下,精确地求解了电子的薛定谔方程.数值计算结果表明,类氢杂质基态及低激发态的束缚能敏感地依赖于抛物形势的角频率,受类氢杂质的影响,谱线发生蓝移.这一结果对设计和制备量子点器件是有价值的.     

Electron radiation effects on InAs/GaAs quantum dot lasers

The InAs/GaAs quantum dot laser diodes and corresponding quantum dot samples are irradiated by 1 MeV electron. The laser performance and quantum dot photoluminescence intensity at room temperature are enhanced over a fluence range of 4 × 10¹³ cm^?2. The radiation-induced defects increase the efficiency of carrier transfer to the quantum dots, which results in the improvement of photoluminescence performance under low level displacement damage. The contact resistant of quantum dot lasers decreases because the ohmic contact is also improved by electron irradiation.     

InAs/GaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors with different growth temperatures

InAs/GaAs quantum dot infrared photodetectors were fabricated with quantum dots grown at three different temperatures. Large detection wavelength shift (5–14.5 μm) was demonstrated by changing 40 degrees of the epitaxy temperature. The smaller quantum dots grown at lower temperature generate 14.5 μm responses. The detectivity of the normal incident 15 μm QDIP at 77 K is 3 × 10⁸ cm Hz^1/2/W. A three-color detector was also demonstrated with quantum dots grown at medium temperature. The three-color detection comes from two groups of different sizes of dots within one QD layer. This new type of multicolor detector shows unique temperature tuning behavior that was never reported before.     

Hydrostatic pressure effects on impurity states in InAs/GaAs quantum dot

Within the framework of effective-mass approximation, the hydrostatic pressure effects on the donor binding energy of a hydrogenic impurity in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot(QD) are investigated by means of a variational method. Numerical results show that the donor binding energy increases when the hydrostatic pressure increases for any impurity position and QD size. Moreover, the hydrostatic pressure has a remarkable influence on the donor binding energy for small QD. Realistic cases, including the impurity in the QD and the surrounding barrier, are considered.     

The improvement of InAs/GaAs quantum dot properties capped by Graphene

InAs self‐assembled quantum dots (QDs) were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on (001) GaAs substrate. Uncapped and capped QDs with GaAs and graphene layers were studied using atomic force microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Graphene multi‐layer was grown by chemical vapor deposition and transferred on InAs/GaAs QDs. It is well known that the presence of a cap layer modifies the size, shape, and density of the QDs. According to the atomic force microscopy study, in contrast to the GaAs capped sample, which induce a dramatic decrease of the density and height of dots, graphene cap layer sample presents a slight influence on the surface morphology and the density of the islands compared with the uncapped one. The difference shown in the Raman spectra of the samples is due to change of strain and alloy disorder effects on the QDs. Residuals strain and the relaxation coefficients have been investigated. All results confirm the best crystalline quality of the graphene cap layer dots sample relative to the GaAs capped one. So graphene can be used to replace GaAs in capping InAs/GaAs dots. To our knowledge, such study has not been carried out until now. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of a longitudinal magnetic field on spin injection and detection in InAs/GaAs quantum dot structures

Effects of a longitudinal magnetic field on optical spin injection and detection in InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) structures are investigated by optical orientation spectroscopy. An increase in the optical and spin polarization of the QDs is observed with increasing magnetic field in the range 0-2?T, and is attributed to suppression of exciton spin depolarization within the QDs that is promoted by the hyperfine interaction and anisotropic electron-hole exchange interaction. This leads to a corresponding enhancement in spin detection efficiency of the QDs by a factor of up to 2.5. At higher magnetic fields, when these spin depolarization processes are quenched, the electron spin polarization in anisotropic QD structures (such as double QDs that are preferably aligned along a specific crystallographic axis) still exhibits a rather strong field dependence under non-resonant excitation. In contrast, such a field dependence is practically absent in more 'isotropic' QD structures (e.g.?single QDs). We attribute the observed effect to stronger electron spin relaxation in the spin injectors (i.e.?wetting layer and GaAs barriers) of the lower-symmetry QD structures, which also explains the lower spin injection efficiency observed in these structures.     

Two-color two-photon Rabi oscillation of biexciton in single InAs/GaAs quantum dot

A two-photon absorption resonance is observed when the sum-frequency of two laser pulses equals the creation energy of a biexciton in a single InAs/GaAs semiconductor quantum dot. Resonant excitation of the two-color two-photon transition results in a coherent oscillation that is remarkably similar to a single-color two-photon Rabi oscillation of the crystal-ground to biexciton optical transition. A model explaining the coherent two-photon absorption is presented.     

Optical and transport studies in coupled InAs quantum dots embedded in GaAs

We studied optical and electron transport properties of coupled InAs quantum dots (QDs) embedded in GaAs. Photoluminescence (PL) from the high dot density samples indicated asymmetry in the PL spectra when the ambient temperature is lower than about 50 K. Comparing this result with theoretical calculations, it is shown that this phenomenon is explained by the inter-dot electronic coupling effect. In the photo-conductance measurement, resonance peaks in the current–voltage characteristics were observed in the low-temperature region. The dependence of the resonance voltage on the magnetic field intensity was studied to extract the g-factor. It is also shown that the resonances are attributed to the current corresponding to the electron transport through QDs. According to these results, it is concluded that the inter-dot electronic coupling in the self-assembled InAs/GaAs QD systems occurs when the inter-dot spacing is as low as several nanometers and the ambient temperature is less than about 50 K.     

含有AlGaAs插入层的InAs/GaAs三色量子点红外探测器

本文报道了采用分子束外延技术制备的三色InAs/GaAs量子点红外探测器. 器件采用nin型结构, 吸收区结构是在InGaAs量子阱中生长含有AlGaAs插入层的InAs量子点, 器件在77 K下的红外光电流谱有三个峰值: 6.3, 10.2和11 μm. 文中分析了它们的跃迁机制, 并且分别进行了指认. 因为有源区采用了不对称结构, 所以器件在外加偏压正负方向不同时, 光电流谱峰值的强度存在一些差异. 不论在正偏压或者负偏压下, 当偏压达到较高值, 再进一步增大偏压时, 都出现了对应于连续态的跃迁峰强度明显下降的现象, 这是由量子点基态与阱外连续态的波函数交叠随着偏压进一步增大而迅速减小导致的.     

InAs/GaAs submonolayer quantum dot superluminescent diode emitting around 970 nm

According to the InAs/GaAs submonolayer quantum dot active region, we demonstrate a bent-waveguide superluminescent diode emitting at a wavelength of around 970 nm. At a pulsed injection current of 0.5 A, the device exhibits an output power of 24 mW and an emission spectrum centred at 971 nm with a full width at half maximum of 16 nm.     

Optical spectroscopy of a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot in high magnetic fields

We report on the measurements of the photoluminescence from the s-shell of a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot in magnetic fields up to 23 T. The observed multiline emission is attributed to different charge states of a single dot. Characteristic anticrossing of emission lines is explained in terms of hybridization of final states of a triply charged exciton (X⁻³).     

沉积速率和生长停顿对InAs/GaAs量子点超晶格生长影响的综合分析

采用动力学蒙特卡罗模型模拟了沉积速率和生长停顿对GaAs衬底中垂直耦合InAs 量子点超晶格生长早期阶段的影响.通过对生长表面形态、岛平均尺寸、岛尺寸分布及其标准差等方面的研究,发现综合控制沉积速率和生长停顿时间能够得到大小均匀、排列有序的岛阵列.这对后续量子点超晶格生长过程中量子点的定位有重要影响. 关键词： 动力学蒙特卡罗模拟 量子点超晶格 外延生长     

Electrical transport and persistent photoconductivity in quantum dot layers in InAs/GaAs structures

The conductivity of quantum dot layers is studied in InAs/GaAs structures in the temperature range from 300 to 0.05 K in the dark and using two types of illumination in magnetic fields up to 6 T. Depending on the initial concentration of current carriers, the conductivity of the structures varied from metallic (the Shubnikov-de Haas effect was observed) to hopping conductivity. At low temperatures, the temperature dependence of the resistance changed from the Mott dependence to the dependence described by the Shklovskii-Efros law for hopping conductivity in the presence of the Coulomb gap in the density of states. The conductivity of samples was studied upon their illumination at λ = 791 nm and λ > 1120 nm. All the samples exhibited a positive persistent photoconductivity at T < 250 K. The structures were also studied using photoluminescence and an atomic force microscope.