Bandgap engineering of self-assembled InAs quantum dots with a thin AlAs barrier

We investigate the effects of a thin AlAs layer with different position and thickness on the optical properties of InAs quantum dots (QDs) by using transmission electron microscopy and photoluminescence (PL). The energy level shift of InAs QD samples is observed by introducing the thin AlAs layer without any significant loss of the QD qualities. The emission peak from InAs QDs directly grown on the 4 monolayer (ML) AlAs layer is blueshifted from that of reference sample by 219 meV with a little increase in FWHM from 42–47 meV for ground state. In contrast, InAs QDs grown under the 4 ML AlAs layer have PL peak a little redshifted to lower energy by 17 meV. This result is related to the interdiffusion of Al atom at the InAs QDs caused by the annealing effect during growing of InAs QDs on AlAs layer.     

Beam propagation method using a [(p- 1)/ p] Padé approximant of the propagator

A new beam propagation method (BPM) is developed based on a direct approximation to the propagator by its [(p-1)/p] Padé approximant. The approximant is simple to construct and has the desired damping effect for the evanescent modes. The method is applied to a tapered waveguide for TM-polarized waves, based on the energy-conserving improvement of the one-way Helmholtz equation. Numerical results are compared with those obtained with other variants of the BPM.     

Large enhancement of spontaneous emission rates of InAs quantum dots in GaAs microdisks

We have studied the enhancement of spontaneous emission rates for InAs quantum dots embedded in GaAs microdisks in a time-resolved photoluminescence experiment. Inhomogeneous broadening of the quantum dot energy levels and random spatial distribution of the quantum dots in a microdisk lead to a broad distribution of the spontaneous emission rates. Using a nonnegative least-norm algorithm, we extract the distribution of spontaneous emission rates from the temporal decay of emission intensity. The maximum spontaneous emission enhancement factor exceeds 10.     

Spontaneous formation of bags with negative surface energy

We demonstrate within the Ginzburg-Landau model of a confining medium that the surface energy associated with the interface between the normal and the confining phases can be negative, and briefly discuss some consequences of this fact.Dedicated to the memory of M. Gmitro.This work was done at the Niels Bohr Institute Copenhagen, and put into its final form at the Institute of Theoretical Physics, of University of Regensburg. I thank both institutes for their generous hospitality and Professors Poul Olesen and Wolfram Weise for discussions.