Wet-chemical passivation of atomically flat and structured silicon substrates for solar cell application

Special sequences of wet-chemical oxidation and etching steps were optimised with respect to the etching behaviour of differently oriented silicon to prepare very smooth silicon interfaces with excellent electronic properties on mono- and poly-crystalline substrates. Surface photovoltage (SPV) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) investigations were utilised to develop wet-chemical smoothing procedures for atomically flat and structured surfaces, respectively. Hydrogen-termination as well as passivation by wet-chemical oxides were used to inhibit surface contamination and native oxidation during the technological processing. Compared to conventional pre-treatments, significantly lower micro-roughness and densities of surface states were achieved on mono-crystalline Si(100), on evenly distributed atomic steps, such as on vicinal Si(111), on silicon wafers with randomly distributed upside pyramids, and on poly-crystalline EFG (Edge-defined Film-fed-Growth) silicon substrates.The recombination loss at a-Si:H/c-Si interfaces prepared on c-Si substrates with randomly distributed upside pyramids was markedly reduced by an optimised wet-chemical smoothing procedure, as determined by PL measurements. For amorphous-crystalline hetero-junction solar cells (ZnO/a-Si:H(n)/c-Si(p)/Al) with textured c-Si substrates the smoothening procedure results in a significant increase of short circuit current I_sc, fill factor and efficiency η. The scatter in the cell parameters for measurements on different cells is much narrower, as compared to conventional pre-treatments, indicating more well-defined and reproducible surface conditions prior to a-Si:H emitter deposition and/or a higher stability of the c-Si surface against variations in the a-Si:H deposition conditions.     

Studies of craters’ dimension for long-pulse laser ablation of metal targets at various experimental conditions

Long pulse laser shots of the PALS iodine laser in Prague have been used to obtain metal target ablation at various experimental conditions. Attention is paid mainly to the dependencies of the crater diameter on the position of minimum laser-focus spot with regard to the target surface, by using different laser wavelengths and laser energies. Not only a single one, but two minima, independently of the wavelength, of the target irradiation angle and of the target material, were recorded. Significant asymmetries, ascribed to the non-linear effects of intense laser beam with pre-formed plasma, were found, too. Estimations of ejected mass per laser pulse are reported and used to calculate the efficiency of laser-driven loading. Results on metal target ablation and crater formation at high intensities (from 2 × 10¹³ to 3 × 10¹⁶ W/cm²) are presented and compared. Crater depth, crater diameter and etching yield are reported versus the laser energy, in order to evaluate the ablation threshold fluence.     

$${f(\mathcal R)}$$ quantum cosmology

We have quantized a flat cosmological model in the context of the metric models, using the causal Bohmian quantum theory. The equations are solved and then we have obtained how the quantum corrections influence the classical equations.     

Spin–gravity coupling and gravity-induced quantum phases

External gravitational fields induce phase factors in the wave functions of particles. The phases are exact to first order in the background gravitational field, are manifestly covariant and gauge invariant and provide a useful tool for the study of spin–gravity coupling and of the optics of particles in gravitational or inertial fields. We discuss the role that spin–gravity coupling plays in particular problems.     

A Categorical Framework for the Quantum Harmonic Oscillator

This paper describes how the structure of the state space of the quantum harmonic oscillator can be described by an adjunction of categories, that encodes the raising and lowering operators into a commutative comonoid. The formulation is an entirely general one in which Hilbert spaces play no special role. Generalised coherent states arise through the hom-set isomorphisms defining the adjunction, and we prove that they are eigenstates of the lowering operators. Generalised exponentials also emerge naturally in this setting, and we demonstrate that coherent states are produced by the exponential of a raising morphism acting on the zero-particle state. Finally, we examine all of these constructions in a suitable category of Hilbert spaces, and find that they reproduce the conventional mathematical structures.     

Quantic Superpositions and the Geometry of Complex Hilbert Spaces

The concept of a superposition is a revolutionary novelty introduced by Quantum Mechanics. If a system may be in any one of two pure states x and y, we must consider that it may also be in any one of many superpositions of x and y. An in-depth analysis of superpositions is proposed, in which states are represented by one-dimensional subspaces, not by unit vectors as in Dirac’s notation. Superpositions must be considered when one cannot distinguish between possible paths, i.e., histories, leading to the current state of the system. In such a case the resulting state is some compound of the states that result from each of the possible paths. States can be compounded, i.e., superposed in such a way only if they are not orthogonal. Since different classical states are orthogonal, the claim implies no non-trivial superpositions can be observed in classical systems. The parameter that defines such compounds is a proportion defining the mix of the different states entering the compound. Two quantities, p and θ, both geometrical in nature, relate one-dimensional subspaces in complex Hilbert spaces: the first one is a measure of proximity relating two rays, the second one is an angle relating three rays. The properties of superpositions with respect to those two quantities are studied. The algebraic properties of the operation of superposition are very different from those that govern linear combination of vectors. This work was partially supported by the Jean and Helene Alfassa fund for research in Artificial Intelligence, by the Israel Science Foundation grant 183/03 on “Quantum and other cumulative logics” and by EPSRC Visiting Fellowship GR/T 24562 on “Quantum Logic”.     

Massive Radiation via Tunneling in a BTZ Black Hole

Hawking radiation can usefully be viewed as a semi-classical tunneling process that originates at the black hole horizon. Massive radiation from a BTZ black hole is investigated. The conservation of energy implies the effect of self-gravitation. Viewed as a tunneling process, the emission spectrum derivates from the pure thermal spectrum, but it is consistent with an underlying unitary theory. The result is the same as that of massless particles.     

Constructing Four-Photon States for Quantum Communication and Information Processing

We provide a method for constructing a set of four-photon states suitable for quantum communication applications. Among these states is a set of concatenated quantum code states that span a decoherence-free subspace that is robust under collective-local as well as global dephasing noise. This method requires only the use of spontaneous parametric down-conversion, quantum state post-selection, and linear optics. In particular, we show how this method can be used to produce all sixteen elements of the second-order Bell gem , which includes these codes states and is an orthonormal basis for the Hilbert space of four qubits composed entirely of states that are fully entangled under the four-tangle measure.