Deuterium in In-based quantum wells

The photoluminescence (PL) of high quality InGaAs/GaAs typically shows one strong intrinsic band, due to the heavy-bole free-exciton (HHFE) recombination. After sample irradiation with deuterium, two bands appear at energies below that of HHFE: a deeper band, D, due to radiative recombination at a deuterium-related site, and a shallower band, (D,X), attributed to an exciton bound to the same state. A maximum of the binding energy has been observed as a function of the well width for both states. As the indium molar fraction x increases, the strength of the D band decreases, together with its binding energy, until the band becomes no more detectable at x=0.37. The (D,X) band cannot be resolved for x ≥ 0.19. Deuterium diffusion has no beneficial effect on the PL intensity of InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells. Different is the case of InAs/GaAs quantum wells having well width below 2 monolayers. Although no strain relaxation occurs in the samples, the PL of the virgin samples is typical of structures with a high number of defects. After deuterium diffusion, the PL intensity increases by one to three orders of magnitude, depending whether non-radiative centers or thermal escape of carriers from the well rule the PL efficiency.     

Isotopic shift in angle-resolved photoemission spectra of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 due to quadratic electron-phonon coupling

In connection with the experiment on oxygen isotope effect of Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O₈ with the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), we theoretically study the isotope-induced band shift in ARPES by the Hartree-Fork and quantum Monte Carlo methods. We find that this band shift can be clarified based on a quadratically coupled electron-phonon (e-ph) model. The large ratio of band shift versus phonon energy change is connected with the softening effect of phonon, and the positive-negative sign change is due to the momentum dependence of the e-ph coupling.     

ZnCuInS/ZnS量子点光致发光温度依赖性研究

ZnCuInS/ZnS量子点是一种无重金属"绿色"半导体纳米材料。制备出了直径为2.9nm的ZnCuInS/ZnS核壳量子点。从ZnCuInS/ZnS量子点的吸收及光致发光光谱中可以看到,量子点的斯托克斯位移为410meV。这样大的斯托克斯位移表明,ZnCuInS/ZnS量子点的复合机制与缺陷能级有关。研究并计算了在辐射及非辐射驰豫过程的(Huang-Rhys)因子及平均声子能量。结果表明在50~373K范围内,能量带隙的变化以及光致发光光谱的增宽是分别由光从能带边缘向缺陷能级跃迁及载流子声子耦合导致的。     

Self focusing of laser beams in a degenerate nonparabolic semiconductor: Kinetic approach

Using rigorous kinetic treatment the steady state self-focusing of laser beams in a degenerate nonparabolic semiconductor (e.g. n-InSb) has been investigated beyond the perturbation limit. The nonlinearity arises due to the energy dependence of the electron mass in the conduction band. The energy loss of electron energy is assumed to be due to polar optical phonons and momentum transfer due to ionised impurity scattering/polar optical phonon scattering. It is found that nonlinearity in the dielectric constant or the self-focusing is more pronounced in the case of ionised impurity case as compared to polar optical phonon case. The effect of absorption is to suppress the self-focusing but the latter is also enhanced by degeneracy.     

On the structure of wave fields in the region of linear interaction between ordinary and extraordinary waves in two-dimensionally inhomogeneous magnetoactive plasmas

The spectra of the low-temperature photodissociation (photoionization) of Landau-Pekar polarons are calculated using the theory of quantum-coherent states and a new method of variation with respect to the parameters of phonon vacuum deformation. It is shown that the final polaron states upon photodissociation may have different numbers of phonons produced in a single dissociation event and different momenta of charge carriers. The spectrum of optical absorption related to the photodissociation of polarons exhibits a superposition of bands corresponding to various numbers of phonons formed as a result of dissociation of a single polaron. Due to a large width of the energy region corresponding to the final states of charge carriers, the halfwidth of each band is on the order of the energy of polaron coupling and is much greater than the phonon energy. For this reason, the individual phonon bands exhibit strong overlap. The very broad and, probably, structureless band formed as a result of the superposition of all these components begins at an energy equal to the sum of the polaron coupling energy (E _p) and the phonon energy. This band has a maximum at a frequency of about 5.6E _p/? and a halfwidth on the order of 5.6E _p/? at a unit effective mass (m* = m _e) of band electrons. For an effective charge carrier mass within m* = (1–3)m _e, the energy of the polaron band maximum can be estimated as 5E _p with an error of about 10%, and the halfwidth falls within 3.4E _p < ?Ω_1/2 < 5.6E _p. The multiphonon character of this band is related to a decay of the phonon condensate after the escape of charge carrier from a polaron. Such polarons are likely to be observed in the spectra of complex metal oxides, including high-temperature superconductors. Examples of such polaron bands in the reported absorption and photoconductivity spectra of nonstoichiometric cuprates, manganites, nickelates, and titanates are presented. A theory of the formation of Landau-Pekar polarons with the participation of branches of the polarization oscillations of the medium is developed. It is shown that, under certain conditions, such a multiphonon-dressed polaron can possess a coupling energy on the order of 0.2–0.3 eV, so that the maximum of the corresponding absorption band may occur at 1–1.5 eV.     

Evidence for exciton binding at Ni impurity sites in ZnSe

A broad charge transfer band is observed in the photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectrum of the 2.5 μ Ni²⁺ luminescence in ZnSe : Ni. This band lies above the highest energy d-d excitation bands and exhibits a ZPL at 1.8163 eV and LO(#38;0lambda;) phonon replicas at higher energy. In contrast, PLE spectra of Co²⁺ luminescence in ZnSe:Co contain only d-d excitation bands. The charge transfer band in ZnSe:Ni is interpreted as evidence for bound exciton formation at the Ni site. The recombination energy of this exciton is transferred efficiently to the excited d-band states of the Ni ion, leading to characteristic Ni²⁺d-d luminescence.     

Optical spectra of strong-coupling polarons

The photodissociation spectra of Landau-Pekar polarons are calculated using the theory of quantum coherent states. It is shown that the number of phonons emitted in one dissociation event can differ and that their energy is equal to the doubled polaron binding energy E _p only on the average. It is established that the absorption spectrum is a superposition of bands corresponding to different numbers of phonons emitted during the dissociation of one polaron and that the half-width of each of the bands is much greater than the distance between the bands (which is equal to the phonon energy ?θ). Therefore, the absorption spectrum looks like a very wide unstructured band with the low-frequency edge lying at E _p + ?θ, a maximum at an energy of about 5E _p (for the band carrier mass equal to (1–3)m _e ), and the half-width being of the order of the energy corresponding to the maximum.     

Auger relaxation processes in semiconductor nanocrystals and quantum wells

Auger recombination rates in mesoscopic semiconductor structures have been studied as a function of energy band parameters and heterostructure size. It is shown that nonthreshold Auger processes stimulated by the presence of heteroboundaries become the dominant nonradiative recombination channel in nanometer size semiconductor structures. The size dependence of luminescence quantum yields in nanostructures and microcrystals are discussed. Auger-like collisions of electrons and heavy holes are shown to serve as “accelerators” of thermalization processes in semiconductor quantum dots.     

Terahertz acoustic-phonon signal generated by heated electrons in AlGaAs/GaAs-based quantum wires

In this paper, we explore theoretically the possibility of applying AlGaAs/GaAs-based quantum wire systems as a terahertz (THz) ultrasonic generator. For structures such as Al_xGa_1-xAs/GaAs-based low-dimensional semiconductor systems and semiconductor nanostructures, electrons are confined within the nanometer distance scale so that energies (e.g. electronic subband energy, electron kinetic energy, Fermi energy, etc.) are in the meV scale, which consequently results in the acoustic-phonons generated by heated electrons from these novel systems to be around the THz frequency range. Our theoretical results indicate that: (i) Al_xGa_-xAs/GaAs-based quantum wires are suitable for generating THz acoustic-phonon signals; (ii) both longitudinal and transverse acoustic-phonon modes contribute to the detected phonon signals; (iii) the THz ultrasound wave can be generated through both intra- and inter-subband scattering processes; and (iv) the strong dependence of the acoustic-phonon emission from a quantum wire on phonon frequency and phonon emission angle can be observed.     

Singlet and triplet bipolarons on the triangular lattice

We study the Coulomb-Fröhlich model on a triangular lattice, looking in particular at states with angular momentum. We examine a simplified model of crab bipolarons with angular momentum by projecting onto the low energy subspace of the Coulomb-Fröhlich model with large phonon frequency. Such a projection is consistent with large long-range electron-phonon coupling and large repulsive Hubbard U. Significant differences are found between the band structure of singlet and triplet states: The triplet state (which has a flat band) is found to be significantly heavier than the singlet state (which has mass similar to the polaron). We test whether the heavier triplet states persist to lower electron-phonon coupling using continuous time quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) simulation. The triplet state is both heavier and larger, demonstrating that the heavier mass is due to quantum interference effects on the motion. We also find that retardation effects reduce the differences between singlet and triplet states, since they reintroduce second order terms in the hopping into the inverse effective mass.     

Stokes and anti-stokes excitation of the resonance emission band of crystal phosphors

Anti-Stokes laser excitation has been induced by one photon absorption transitions in the resonance band of the following crystal phosphors: a natural diamond crystal in which the line structure of the spectrum is quite important, a ZnS:Mn crystal in which the line spectrum is easily observed but its intensity is smaller than that of the wide band emission, and halo-complexes of manganese in which the zero phonon line can hardly be observed. In all cases the emitted spectrum has the same shape as while using Stokes excitation; the intensity depends on temperature by means of a Boltzmann factor. Such a result is easily accounted for by the theory; however, except perhaps in the case of diamond, experiment is not in agreement with the simple theoretical model which concludes that the activation energy W involved in the excitation process is equal to the difference E₀ - hv between the energy of the zero phonon line E₀ and the exciting laser energy hv.     

液封坩埚下降法生长非掺杂InP单晶的特性研究

用液封坩埚下降(LE-VB)法沿〈100〉晶向成功地生长了非掺杂InP单晶。LE-VB晶体的4.2K光致发光谱包含束缚于中性浅受主上的激子发光、与Zn受主相关的施主-受主(DA)对发光及其声子伴线、以及与本征缺陷等有关的深能级发光三部分。通过与液封直拉(LEC)生长的籽晶的光致发光谱比较表明,在LE-VB晶体中,束缚于中性浅受主上的激子发光与籽晶中的相差不大;DA对发光的晶格弛豫比籽晶中的小;与本征缺陷等有关的深能级发光强度比籽晶中的弱。晶体的室温光致发光谱仅包含带-带发光,其发光强度形貌测试结果表明,LE-VB晶体的带-带发光强度比LEC籽晶的强。用Huber法对晶片腐蚀的结果表明,在LE-BV晶体中,位错密度仅为LEC籽晶中的三分之一。分析认为,在LE-VB晶体中,本征缺陷和位错等浓度较低,可能是其带-带发光强度比在LEC籽晶中强的物理起因。     

Influence of phonons on the electronic energy spectrum of small semiconductor quantum dots in a dielectric matrix

A diagrammatic technique developed for Green’s functions with inclusion of multiphonon processes is used to investigate the electronic energy levels and the phonon replicas corresponding to them in a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) embedded in a dielectric matrix. It is shown, with reference to GaAs, CdSe, and CuCl quantum dots embedded in glass, that in the case of QD potential wells of a finite depth the shifts of the electronic energy levels decrease with decreasing QD size, irrespective of the strength of electron-phonon coupling in the nanoheterostructure. Theoretically calculated positions of the phonon replicas for CdSe in glass agree with the experimental data on Raman scattering.     

Influence of phonon confinement on the optically detected magneto-phonon resonance line-width in quantum wells

We investigate the influence of phonon confinement on the optically detected magneto-phonon resonance (ODMPR) effect and ODMPR line-width in quantum wells. The ODMPR conditions as functions of the well's width and the photon energy are also obtained. The shifts of ODMPR peaks caused by the confined phonon are discussed. The numerical result for the GaAs/AlAs quantum well shows that in the two cases of confined and bulk phonons, the line-width (LW) decreases with increasing well's width and increases with increasing temperature. Furthermore, in the small range of the well's width, the influence of phonon confinement plays an important role and cannot be neglected in reaching the ODMPR line-width.     

Optimized Peltier cooling via an array of quantum dots with stair-like ground-state energy configuration

With the advancement in fabrication and scaling technology, the rising temperature in nano devices has attracted special attention towards thermoelectric or Peltier cooling. In this paper, I propose optimum Peltier cooling by employing an array of connected quantum dots with stair-like ground-state eigen energy configuration. The difference in ground state eigen energy between two adjacent quantum dots in the stair-like configuration is chosen to be identical with the optical phonon energy for efficient absorption of lattice heat. I show that in the proposed configuration, for a given optical phonon energy, one can optimize the cooling power by tuning the number of stages in the array of quantum dots. A further analysis demonstrates that the maximum cooling power at a given potential bias under optimal conditions does not depend strongly on the optical phonon energy or the number of stages at which the maximum cooling power is achieved, provided that the optical phonon energy is less than kT. The proposed concept can also be applied to $2?D$ or bulk resonant tunnel and superlattice structures with stair-like resonant energy configuration.     

Sasers: resonant transitions in narrow-gap semiconductors and in exciton system in coupled quantum wells

Two schemes for steady stimulated phonon generation (saser, i.e., phonon laser) are proposed. The first scheme exploits a narrow-gap indirect semiconductor or analogous indirect gap semiconductor heterostructure where the tuning into resonance of one-phonon transition of electron–hole recombination can be carried out by external pressure, magnetic or electric fields. The second scheme uses one-phonon transition between direct and indirect exciton levels in coupled quantum wells. The tuning into the resonance of this transition can be accomplished by engineering of dispersion of indirect exciton by external in-plane magnetic and normal electric fields. In the second scheme the magnitude of phonon wave vector is determined by magnitude of in-plane magnetic field and, therefore, such a saser is tunable. Both schemes are analyzed and estimated numerically.     

Level splitting in semimagnetic semiconductors under spin-magnetophonon resonance conditions

The splitting of electronic levels in quantum wells of semimagnetic semiconductors typically characterized by large effective g factors is analyzed theoretically. They are found to be capable of supporting resonance, provided the Zeeman spin-level splitting is equal to the energy of the longitudinal optical phonon ?ω_‖. The resonance condition can be written as ?ω_‖ = gμ_B B. This condition can be satisfied by choosing the magnetic field Bsuch that the sum of the energies of the lowest spin level and the optical phonon coincides with the energy of the highest level. It is shown that these two degenerate energy levels should experience mutual repulsion. The magnitude of the corresponding splitting depends on both the electron-phonon and spin-orbit interactions in semiconductors; moreover, it turns out substantially lower than the Zeeman energy gμ_B B. Resonant passage of light through and its reflection from a quantum well are considered as one of possible ways to observe this energy level splitting.     

Influence of phonon dispersion and exciton spectrum on the energy spectrum of magnetopolarons in a quantum well

An analysis is made of the influence of the spatial dispersion of LO phonons and the exciton effect on the energy spectrum of magnetopolarons in a quantum well. It is shown that in optical experiments where light is incident normally on the plane of the quantum well, a discrete spectrum of magnetopolarons is observed. Both the phonon dispersion and the Coulomb attraction of an electron and a hole may lead to a shift of the discrete magnetopolaron energy levels and additional contributions to the broadening of various levels.     

Cascade processes in inelastic light scattering in ZnSe nanowire structures

The resonance Raman scattering of light in MBE-grown structures with ZnSe nanowires (10–20 nm in diameter) with an Au film deposited on the substrate used as a catalyst was investigated. The thicknesses of the Au layers were 2, 10, and 100 Å. The photon energy of the He-Cd pump laser (λ = 441.6 nm) was in excess of the band gap of bulk ZnSe, and the measurements were conducted at room temperature. Under these conditions, the Raman spectra are defined by a cascade process in which the electron interacting with a longitudinal optical phonon transfers between real band states with a certain probability of radiative recombination at each step. The blue shift of the luminescence maximum associated with the quantum confinement of carriers in the nanowire has been observed. The average nanowire diameter derived from the magnitude of this shift agrees well with electron microscopy measurements.     

Relaxation of hot excitons in CdZnSe/ZnSe quantum wells and quantum dots

The relaxation dynamics of hot excitons was studied in (Zn,Cd)Se/ZnSe quantum wells and quantum dots. A fast population of the radiative excitonic ground state occurs for an excitation excess energy corresponding to an integer number of optical phonon energies. This is indicated by a spectrally narrow photoluminescence peak observed immediately after the exciting laser pulse. Spatial diffusion of excitons, controlled by the interaction between excitons and acoustic phonons, causes a distinct linewidth broadening with increasing delay time in quantum wells. In contrast, this process is found to be strongly suppressed in quantum dots.