Optical Stark effect in a quantum dot: ultrafast control of single exciton polarizations

We report the first experimental study of the optical Stark effect in single semiconductor quantum dots (QD). For below band gap excitation, two-color pump-probe spectra show dispersive line shapes caused by a light-induced blueshift of the excitonic resonance. The line shape depends strongly on the excitation field strength and is determined by the pump-induced phase shift of the coherent QD polarization. Transient spectral oscillations can be understood as rotations of the QD polarization phase with negligible population change. Ultrafast control of the QD polarization is demonstrated.     

The nonlinear optical rectification of an ellipsoidal quantum dot with impurity in the presence of an electric field

We have performed theoretical calculation of second-order nonlinear optical rectification (OR) coefficient in a typical GaAs/AlGaAs QD with ellipsoidal confinement potential in the presence of an impurity and an applied electric field. Using an appropriate coordinate transformation and the perturbation theory, we have investigated the OR coefficient as a function of incident photon energy. Calculation results show that the values of OR coefficient increase with an increase of applied electric field. However, the values decrease with increases in confinement strength and ellipticity constant. Additionally, the presence of a donor impurity shifts the OR coefficient peak positions to higher energies (blueshift), contrary to that of an acceptor impurity.     

Influence of annealing temperature on the photoluminescence properties of ZnO quantum dots

The properties of ZnO quantum dots (QDs) synthesized by the sol-gel process are reported. The primary focus is on investigating the origin of the visible emission from ZnO QDs by the annealing process. The X-ray diffraction results show that ZnO QDs have hexagonal wurtzite structure and the QD diameter estimated from Debye-Scherrer formula is 8.9 nm, which has a good agreement with the results from transmission electron microscopy images and the theoretical calculation based on the Potential Morphing Method. The room-temperature photoluminescence spectra reveal that the ultraviolet excitation band has a red shift. Meanwhile, the main band of the visible emission shifts to the green luminescence band from the yellow luminescence one with the increase of the annealing temperature. A lot of oxygen atoms enter into Zn vacancies and form oxygen antisites with increasing temperature. That is probably the reason for the change of the visible emission band.     

PbTe/CdTe量子阱光学性质的研究

PbTe/CdTe量子阱是一类新型异系低维结构材料,实验观察到具有强的室温中红外光致发光现象.建立了理论模型,计算了PbTe/CdTe量子阱的自发辐射率和光学增益.模型中量子阱分立能级的计算采用k·p包络波函数方法和有限深势阱近似,考虑了PbTe能带结构的各项异性和阱层中应变对能级的影响.计算了PbTe/CdTe量子阱自发辐射谱与带间弛豫和注入载流子浓度间的依赖关系,计算结果与实验观察到的光致发光峰相符合.自发辐射谱线峰位随着注入载流子浓度的增加而出现蓝移,当载流子浓度从2×1017cm-3增加到2.8×1018cm-3,基态发射峰从372 meV蓝移到397 meV,而第一激发态发射峰蓝移量为15 meV.上述蓝移现象是由载流子与载流子及载流子与声子间的相互作用引起的.与PbTe体材料相比.PbTe/CdTe量子阱结构具有更高的增益强度(提高近15倍)和更宽的增益区,因而该体系可能是实现室温连续工作的中红外激光器的理想材料.     

Luminescence study of Si/Ge quantum dots

We present a photoluminescence (PL) study of Ge quantum dots embedded in Si. Two different types of recombination processes related to the Ge quantum dots are observed in temperature-dependent PL measurements. The Ge dot-related luminescence peak near 0.80 eV is ascribed to the spatially indirect recombination in the type-II band lineup, while a high-energy peak near 0.85 eV has its origin in the spatially direct recombination. A transition from the spatially indirect to the spatially direct recombination is observed as the temperature is increased. The PL dependence of the excitation power shows an upshift of the Ge quantum dot emission energy with increasing excitation power density. The blueshift is ascribed to band bending at the type-II Si/Ge interface at high carrier densities. Comparison is made with results derived from measurements on uncapped samples. For these uncapped samples, no energy shifts due to excitation power or temperatures are observed in contrast to the capped samples.     

Exciton states in zinc-blende InGaN/GaN quantum dot

Within the framework of effective-mass approximation, exciton states confined in zinc-blende(ZB) InGaN/GaN quantum dot(QD) are investigated by means of a variational approach, considering finite band offsets. The ground-state exciton binding energy and the interband emission energy are investigated as functions of QD structural parameters in detail. Numerical results show clearly that both the QD size and In content of InGaN have a significant influence on the exciton states and interband optical transitions in the ZB InGaN/GaN QD.     

Numerical simulation of a coupling effect on electronic states in quantum dots

Lasers operating at 1.3 μm have attracted considerable attention owing to their potential to provide efficient light sources for next-generation high-speed communication systems. InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) were pointed out as a reliable low-cost way to attain this goal. However, due to the lattice mismatch, the accumulation of strain by stacking the QDs can cause dislocations that significantly degrade the performance of the lasers. In order to reduce this strain, a promising method is the use of InAs QDs embedded in InGaAs layers. The capping of the QD layer with InGaAs is able to tune the emission toward longer and controllable wave-lengths between 1.1 and 1.5 μm. In this work, using the effective-mass envelope-function theory, we investigated theoretically the optical properties of coupled InAs/GaAs strained QDs based structures emitting around 1.33 μm. The calculation was performed by the resolution of the 3D Schrödinger equation. The energy levels of confined carriers and the optical transition energy have been investigated. The oscillator strengths of this transition have been studied with and without taking into account the strain effect in the calculations. The information derived from the present study shows that the InGaAs capping layer may have profound consequences as regards the performance of an InAs/GaAs QD based laser. Based on the present results, we hope that the present work make a contribution to experimental studies of InAs/GaAs QD based structures, namely the optoelectronic applications concerning infrared and mid-infrared spectral regions as well as the solar cells.     

White light-emitting quantum dot diodes and tuning of luminescence processes

A novel white light-emitting diode based on a large Stokes shift (~200 nm) and using pure green light-emitting CdSeS quantum dots (QDs) with an Ag/ZnSnO/QDs/spiro-TPD/ITO structure has been fabricated in which ZnSnO and spiro-TPD are served as the electron and hole transport layer, respectively. The large Stokes shift of the CdSeS QDs excludes potentially Förster resonance energy transfer process, which allows spiro-TPD to act as both an emitter and hole transport layer. The devices exhibit a wide EL spectrum consisting of three components: blue emission from spiro-TPD, green emission from QD band–band recombination, and red emission from QD surface-state recombination. We further found that as the intensity ratios among these three components vary with bias the color of the QD light-emitting diodes is tunable. The device displays a good white light-emitting characteristic with CIE coordinates of (0.281, 0.384) at an appropriate bias.     

闪锌矿GaN/AlGaN量子点中激子态及光学性质的研究

在有效质量近似的框架下,运用变分方法研究闪锌矿GaN/AlGaN量子点中的激子态及相关光学性质,探讨电子与空穴在量子点中的三维空间受限和有限势效应.数值计算结果显示,当量子点的尺寸增加时, 量子尺寸效应对电子和空穴的影响减弱,基态激子结合能和带间光跃迁能也都降低;而当该量子点中垒层AlGaN中 Al含量增加时,提高了量子点对电子和空穴的束缚作用, 同时基态激子结合能和带间光跃迁能都增加.数值的理论结果与相关实验测量结果一致.     

Luminescent ‘On-Off’ CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dot Chemodosimeter for Hydroxide Based on Photoinduced Electron Transfer from a Carboxylate Moiety

A CdSe-ZnS quantum dot (QD) has been surface functionalised by a place exchange reaction with p-mercaptomethyl benzoate synthesized by a three-step procedure. The resulting lumophore-spacer-receptor QD-conjugate was characterized by IR, UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. The emission profile of the QD reveals a narrow emission peak centred at 542 nm. Addition of hydroxide to the solution containing the QD-conjugate results in quenching of the original fluorescence, which is attributed to a photoinduced electron transfer reaction from the electron-rich benzoate moiety to the QD valence band. This is the first reported example of fluorescent quenching of a CdSe-ZnS QD luminescence by an aryl carboxylate moiety.     

Density functional investigation of structural, electronic and optical properties of Ge-doped ZnO

Recent experiments reported fascinating phenomenon of photoluminescence (PL) blueshift in Ge-doped ZnO. To understand it, we examined the structural, electronic and optical properties of Ge-doped ZnO (ZnO:Ge) systematically by means of density functional theory calculations. Our results show that Ge atoms tend to cluster in heavily doped ZnO. Ge clusters can limit the conductivity of doped ZnO but reinforce the near-band-edge emission. The substitutional Ge for Zn leads to Fermi level pinning in the conduction band, which indicates Ge-doped ZnO is of n-type conductivity character. It is found that the delocalized Ge 4s states hybridize with conduction band bottom, and is dominant in the region near the Fermi level, suggesting that Ge-4s states provides major free carriers in ZnO:Ge crystal. The observed blueshift of PL in Ge-doped ZnO originates from the electron transition energy from the valence band to the empty levels above Fermi level larger than the gap of undoped ZnO. The electron transition between the gap states induced by oxygen vacancy and conduction band minimum may be the origin of the new PL peak at 590 nm.     

Influence of In-N Clusters on Band Gap Energy of Dilute Nitride In_xGa_(1-x)N_yAs_(1-y)

The In-N clusters form in the dilute nitride InxGa1-xNy As1-yalloys after annealing.It is found that the formation of the In-N clusters not only raises the N levels lying above the conduction band minimum(CBM)of In GaA s,but also raises the N levels below the CBM of In GaA s,leading to the variation of the impurity-host interaction.The blueshift of the band gap energy is relative to the variation of the impurity-host interaction.In order to describe the blueshift of the band gap energy due to the formation of the In-N clusters,a model is developed.It is found that the model can describe the blueshift of the band gap energy well.In addition,it is found the blueshift of the band gap energy due to the atom interdiffusion at the interface can be larger than that due to the formation of the In-N clusters.     

Abnormal blueshift of UV emission in single-crystalline ZnO nanowires

Single-crystalline ZnO nanowires (NWs) were synthesized by a facile vapor transport method. The good orientation and high crystal quality were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) measurements. Excitation-power-dependence photoluminescence spectra of ZnO NWs show that the UV emission displayed an evident blueshift with increasing excitation power and the corresponding energy shift might be as large as 10 meV. This anomalous phenomenon correlates to the band bending level caused by the surface built-in electric field due to the existence of substantial oxygen vacancies. By increasing the excitation power, the enhanced neutralization effect near the surface will reduce the built-in electric field and lead to a reduction of band bending which triggers the blueshift of the UV emission.     

Enhancement of the photoluminescence intensity of a single InAs/GaAs quantum dot by separate generation of electrons and holes

It is demonstrated that the microphotoluminescence (μPL) spectrum of a single InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dot (QD) undergoes considerable changes when the primary laser excitation is complemented with an additional infrared laser. The primary laser, tuned slightly below the GaAs band gap, provides electron-hole pairs in the wetting layer (WL), as well as excess free electrons from ionized shallow acceptors in the GaAs barriers. An additional IR laser with a fixed energy well below the QD ground state transition generates excess free holes from deep levels in GaAs. The excess electron and hole will experience diffusion separately, due to the time separation between the two events of their generation, to eventually become captured into the QD. Although the generation rates of excess carries are much lower than that of the electron-hole pair generation in the WL, they considerably influence the QD emission at low temperatures. The integrated PL intensity increases by several times as compared to single-laser excitation, and the QD exciton spectrum is redistributed in favor of a more neutral charge configuration. The dependence of the observed phenomenon on the powers of the two lasers and the temperature has been studied and is consistent with the model proposed. The concept of dual excitation could be successfully applied to different low-dimensional semiconductor structures in order to manipulate their charge state and emission intensity. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Observation of many-body Coulomb interaction effects on the photoluminescence spectra of InAs/GaAs quantum dots

InAs quantum dots (QDs) on GaAs (0 0 1) substrates were grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) using two growth temperatures. Photoluminescence (PL) pump power dependence measurements at low temperature were carried out for sample grown at higher temperature (520 °C). With increasing excitation density, the ground-state transition energy is found to decrease by 8 meV, while the excited-state transition energies exhibit resonance behaviour. The redshift of the ground-state emission was related to the band-gap renomalization (BGR) effect whereas the blueshift of the excited-state emissions was assigned to the compensation between filling of fine structure states and BGR effects. Using a quasi-resonant PL measurement, we have shown that the renormalization of the band-gap had to occur in the QD barrier.     

Observation of Overhauser shift in a self-assembled InAlAs quantum dot

We report the polarization-dependent energy shift of excitonic emission in a self-assembled InAlAs/AlGaAs quantum dot (QD). The energy shift is well known as Overhauser shift and was observed in a naturally formed GaAs QD using monolayer fluctuation of a quantum well. However, there has been no observation so far in a self-assembled QD, which is suitable for formation of vertically coupled QDs. We demonstrate that the magnitude of the Overhauser shift is enhanced by the photo-injection of the highly polarized electron and is controllable by the polarization of the excitation light in a self-assembled InAlAs QD.     

Energy distributions of field emitted electrons from few-layer graphene sheets with AB and ABC stacking

We study the effect of the band structure on the energy distributions of field emitted electrons from AB and ABC graphene multilayers. The characteristic sub-peaks are found to appear for each type of stacking. The experimental discovery of these peaks in field emission experiments from carbon few-layer systems can provide important information about a type of stacking.     

Nanostructure model and optical properties of InAs/GaAs quantum dot in vertical cavity surface emitting lasers

We apply 8-band k.p model to study InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs). The strain was calculated using the valence force field (VFF) model which includes the four nearest-neighbour interactions. For the optical properties, we take into account both homogeneous and non-homogeneous broadening for the optical spectrum. Our simulation result is in good agreement with the experimental micro-photoluminescence (μ-PL) result which is from InAs/GaAs QD vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) structure wafer at room temperature. Accordingly, our simulation model is used to predict the QD emission from this QD-VCSELs structure wafer at different temperature ranging from 200–400 K. The simulation results show a decrease of 41 meV of QD ground state (GS) transition energy from 250–350 K. The changes of QDGS transition energy with different temperature indicate the possible detuning range for 1.3-μm wave band QD-VCSELs applications without temperature control. Furthermore, QD differential gain at 300 K is computed based on this model, which will be useful for predicting the intrinsic modulation characteristics of QD-VCSELs.     

On the polarization self-screening effect in multiple quantum wells for nitride-based near ultraviolet light-emitting diodes

The tilted energy band in the multiple quantum wells(MQWs) arising from the polarization effect causes the quantum confined Stark effect(QCSE) for [0001] oriented III-nitride-based near ultraviolet light-emitting diodes(NUV LEDs). Here, we prove that the polarization effect in the MQWs for NUV LEDs can be self-screened once the polarization-induced bulk charges are employed by using the alloy-gradient In_xGa_(1-x)N quantum barriers. The numerical calculations demonstrate that the electric field in the quantum wells becomes weak and thereby flattens the energy band in the quantum wells, which accordingly increases the spatial overlap for the electron-hole wave functions. The polarization self-screening effect is further proven by observing the blueshift for the peak emission wavelength in the calculated and the measured emission spectra. Our results also indicate that for NUV LEDs with a small conduction band offset between the quantum well and the quantum barrier,the electron injection efficiency for the proposed structure becomes low. Therefore, we suggest doping the proposed quantum barrier structures with Mg dopants.     

Sb/As intermixing in self-assembled GaSb/GaAs type II quantum dot systems and control of their photoluminescence spectra

The intermixing of Sb and As atoms induced by rapid thermal annealing (RTA) was investigated for type II GaSb/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots (QD) formed by molecular beam epitaxy growth. Just as in InAs/GaAs QD systems, the intermixing induces a remarkable blueshift of the photoluminescence (PL) peak of QDs and reduces the inhomogeneous broadening of PL peaks for both QD ensemble and wetting layer (WL) as consequences of the weakening of quantum confinement. Contrary to InAs/GaAs QDs systems, however, the intermixing has led to a pronounced exponential increase in PL intensity for GaSb QDs with annealing temperature up to 875 °C. By analyzing the temperature dependence of PL for QDs annealed at 700, 750 and 800 °C, activation energies of PL quenching from QDs at high temperatures are 176.4, 146 and 73.9 meV. The decrease of QD activation energy with annealing temperatures indicates the reduction of hole localization energy in type II QDs due to the Sb/As intermixing. The activation energy for the WL PL was found to drastically decrease when annealed at 800 °C where the QD PL intensity surpassed WL.