Polymer nanocomposites containing different concentrations of Au nanoparticles have been investigated by small angle X‐ray scattering and electronic absorption spectroscopy. The variation in the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) band of Au nanoparticles with concentration is described by a scaling law. The variation in the plasmon band of ReO3 nanoparticles embedded in polymers also follows a similar scaling law.
We present a computational study based on time‐dependent density functional theory of the optical absorption spectra of TiO2 nanowires sensitized with organic dye molecules. We concentrate on catechol and squaraine dyes. For those molecules, we compute adsorption geometries and energies and investigate the optical properties of the combined dye– nanowire system. We find that although the molecules have qualitatively different optical spectra in the gas phase, both lead to an enhancement of the absorption in the visible frequency range when adsorbed on a nanowire.
We report the fabrication procedure and the characterization of an Al0.3Ga0.7As solar cell containing high‐density GaAs strain‐free quantum dots grown by droplet epitaxy. The production of photocurrent when two sub‐bandgap energy photons are absorbed simultaneously is demonstrated. The high quality of the quantum dot/barrier pair, allowed by the high quality of nanostructured strain‐free materials, opens new opportunities for quantum dot based solar cells.
The BOSCO solar cell represents a bifacial structure with double‐sided collection. The structure allows the use of standard module interconnection technology and favours the use of material with low to medium diffusion length and low resistivity for maximum benefit towards other structures, such as Al‐BSF and PERC. Within this work, we present first results on different multicrystalline silicon materials yielding a monofacial efficiency of 17.4% on large‐area wafers from block‐cast mc‐Si. This value represents a gain of ～0.7%abs compared to Al‐BSF cells processed in parallel. The applicability for bifacial operation is demonstrated by a significantly increased quantum efficiency for rear side illumination. These results make the BOSCO solar cell concept a promising candidate to further boost the output of utility‐scale PV plants even when using low‐cost wafers of low to medium diffusion length material.
We study the spin ordering of a quantum dot defined via magnetic barriers in an interacting quantum spin Hall edge. The spin‐resolved density–density correlation functions are computed. We show that strong electron interactions induce a ground state with a highly correlated spin pattern. The crossover from the liquid‐type correlations at weak interactions to the ground state spin texture found at strong interactions parallels the formation of a one‐dimensional Wigner molecule in an ordinary strongly interacting quantum dot.
In this Letter, a GaN‐based high‐power (HP) single‐chip (SC) large‐area LED with parallel and series network structure is fabricated. The optical characteristics of the HP‐SC LED is investigated. Driven at 600 mA, the optical output power of the HP‐SC LED chip is measured to be 9.7 W, corresponding to an EQE of 26.4%, which is 19.6% lower than that of the standard small LED cell due to both the lateral light‐extraction efficiency degradation and the self‐heating effect. A statistical analysis was carried out to investigate the yield of the fabricated HP‐SC LEDs, the experimental results agree with the theoretical calculations very well, validating the feasibility of this design on the production yield for the large‐area LEDs.
The growth, structural and optical characterisation of dilute nitride alloys of InSb grown by plasma‐assisted molecular beam epitaxy is presented. The layers were characterised by high‐resolution X‐ray diffraction indicating high crystalline quality and nitrogen incorporations up to 0.68%. Fourier‐transform infrared absorption measurements reveal the position of the absorption edge to be a result of the competing effects of bandgap reduction (due to nitrogen incorporation and bandgap renormalisation) and Moss–Burstein band filling.
We present the synthesis of highly crystalline metallic rhenium trioxide (ReO3) nanowires via a simple physical vapor transport at 300 °C for the first time. Based on HRTEM, the ReO3 nanowires exhibit a core of perfect cubic perovskite‐type single crystal structure with a shell of thin amorphous and disordered structures of less than 2 nm in the near surface layers. Possibly this is due to proton intercalation induced by the surface reaction of single crystal ReO3 with water.
Persistent layer‐by‐layer growth is demonstrated for pulsed‐laser homoepitaxy of ZnO thin films on $(000\bar 1)$ ZnO single crystals. Employing interval pulsed‐laser deposition (PLD), RHEED oscillations are stabilized over a film thickness of about 90 nm. For interval pulsed laser deposited films a considerably decreased root‐mean‐square surface roughness of 0.26 nm was found, in comparison to 0.74 nm for conventional PLD. A small asymmetry in the X‐ray diffraction (XRD) 2θ –ω scan reveals compressive strain in the thin film being slightly larger for interval PLD as compared to conventional PLD. The FWHM of the photoluminescence (PL) I6 line is higher with about 500 µeV as compared to 350 µeV for the conventional PLD. Consequently, both XRD as well as PL indicate a slightly higher amount of charged defects for the interval PLD.
We report enhanced anomalous photovoltaic effects and switchable photovoltage generation in pure and Pr–Cr co‐doped BiFeO3 (BFO) nanotubes (NTs). Influence of metal doping on short circuit current, open circuit voltage, power conversion efficiency and fill factor are investigated. The power conversion efficiency of pure BFO NTs (～0.207%) is found to be enhanced by several orders of magnitude in comparison with the reported bulk effect. Pr‐doped NTs provide highest values of power conversion efficiency (～0.5%).
Ordered Sr2CrReO6 has been synthesized recently. It is measured to be ferrimagnetic semiconductor, in contrary to the previous reports of metallic properties. To solve the discrepancy, we have investigated the compound by using the density functional theory. The semiconducting behavior is reproduced by including the electron correlation and spin–orbit coupling simultaneously. The calculated band gap is 0.22 eV, close to the experimental value of 0.21 eV. A large orbital moment of 0.69µB is found for Re, which is caused by the Coulomb‐enhanced spin–orbit coupling. By applying pressure, a semiconductor to half‐metal transition is observed through 5% volume compression.
We report on solution‐processible polymer solar cells (PSCs) fabricated on a papery substrate using carton. Highly conductive PEDOT:PSS was used as a bottom anode and planarization layer, and a semi‐transparent top cathode was applied. This research could be an important approach to the development of all‐solution‐processible papery PSCs as well as paper electronics.
A new method for fabricating carbon nanotube‐conducting polymer (CNT‐CP) composite single nanowires is reported. The method developed is highly efficient, reliable, and economical because it obviates the time consuming process of template fabrication and the post‐synthesis task of positioning nanowires. Single nanowires with diameters of 50‐500 nm are fabricated between electrodes, self‐templated by dielectrophoresis and electropolymerization. Fabrication of an individually addressed nanowire array with cantilever electrodes on a microchip is demonstrated.
Osmium diboride has been known for some time as a low compressibility material and a superhard material. It is suitable for hard coating applications. It is also a superconductor below 2.1 K. Using first‐principles calculations, the author investigated the geometry of its Fermi surface (FS) and calculated the related physical quantities. The theoretical results are used to predict the frequencies of the Shubnikov–de Haas quantum oscillations. Comparison with recent measurements of the magneto‐resistance oscillations in osmium diboride is made.
We demonstrate the monolithic integration of a microstructured organic photodiode with a planar optical stripe waveguide. The manufacturing of this waveguide‐integrated organic photodiode is based on an UV photolithography process. The integration of photodiodes with optical waveguides represents an essential building block in the field of optoelectronic‐photonic integrated circuits.
The crystallization process of mechanically alloyed Fe75Zr25 metallic glasses is investigated by means of both thermo‐magnetization and in situ neutron powder thermo‐diffraction experiments in the temperature range 300–1073 K. It was found that the crystallization takes place in a two‐step process, involving firstly the appearance of metastable Fe and Fe2Zr crystalline phases between 880 K and 980 K, and a subsequent polymorphic transformation into Fe3Zr above 980 K. These findings explain the anomalous magnetization vs. temperature behaviour on heating–cooling cycles.
Alkali‐free Cu(In,Ga)Se2(CIGS) absorbers grown on Mo‐coated alumina (Al2O3) substrates were doped with potassium (K) after CIGS growth by a potassium fluoride (KF) post‐deposition treatment (PDT). The addition of K to the absorber leads to a strong increase in cell efficiency from 10.0% for the K‐free cell to 14.2% for the K‐doped cell, mainly driven by an increase in the open‐circuit voltage Voc and the fill factor FF, and to an increase in the net charge carrier density. Hence K doping by KF‐PDT is comparable to doping with Na.
When a GaAs(001) substrate is heated up to 650 °C in a scanning electron microscope (SEM) vacuum chamber with vacuum range from 10–4 Torr to 10–5 Torr, real‐time SEM observation reveals microscale pits on GaAs substrate surface. The annealing process of GaAs substrate in vacuum causes excess evaporation of arsenic and accumulation of gallium as liquid droplets on the surface. As the function of electrochemical drills, the gallium droplets etch away GaAs beneath the surface to make microscale holes on GaAs substrate. With small amount of oxygen in the chamber acting as etching catalyst, gallium droplets etch GaAs much faster than in ultra‐high vacuum (UHV) MBE chamber. This process provides an easy technique to fabricate microscale pits on GaAs(001) surface.
We have shown that nitrophenyl groups may be added to the surface of few‐layer epitaxial graphene (EG) by the formation of covalent carbon–carbon bonds thereby changing the electronic structure and transport properties of EG from near‐metallic to semiconducting. In the present Letter we discuss the opportunities afforded by such chemical processes to engineer device functionality in graphene by modification of the electronic properties without physical patterning.
