Coulomb Enhancement Research Articles

Interfacial Coulomb-enhanced charge injection for efficient perovskite light-emitting diodes

Unbalanced electron-hole injection in perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) has always been a major stumbling block limiting device performance. Here we develop a heterointerface Coulomb enhancement strategy to efficiently promote electron injection between perovskite emitter and transport layer and thereby balance the electron-hole recombination equilibrium through manipulating defect-rich positive-charge centers induced Coulomb interactions in LiF interlayer. Through multiscale polarization response characterizations combined with capacitance-voltage and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, it is confirmed that diffusing holes trapped in LiF layer leads to the increased interfacial polarization. Moreover, the polarization response reversal and high-frequency-dependent dissipation sensitivity further corroborate the LiF-induced interfacial Coulomb enhancement mechanism. The universality of the concept is also successfully verified in devices with electron-only, hole-only, and PN structures. Consequently, the modified PeLEDs show a lower leakage current, along with a significant performance improvement by 1.9 times in external quantum efficiency (18.8%) and 5.7 times in luminance compared with control samples. This study provides a unique perspective to promote carrier transport balance by taking advantage of physical effects within interlayer.

Influence of trap-assisted and intrinsic Auger–Meitner recombination on efficiency droop in green InGaN/GaN LEDs

We study the impact of deep-level defects on trap-assisted Auger–Meitner recombination in c-plane InGaN/GaN LEDs using a small-signal electroluminescence (SSEL) method and deep-level optical spectroscopy (DLOS). Carrier dynamics information, including carrier lifetime, recombination rate, and carrier density, is obtained from SSEL, while DLOS is used to obtain the deep-level defect density. Through fitting the nonradiative recombination rates of wafers with different deep-level defect densities, we obtain the Shockley–Read–Hall (SRH) and trap-assisted Auger–Meitner recombination (TAAR) coefficients. We show that defect-related nonradiative recombination, including both SRH and TAAR, accounts for a relatively small fraction of the total nonradiative recombination, which is dominated by intrinsic Auger–Meitner recombination. The interplay between carrier localization and Coulomb enhancement has a different impact on radiative and intrinsic Auger–Meitner recombination. Evidence is presented that the imbalance between the change of radiative and intrinsic Auger–Meitner recombination is the primary cause of the efficiency droop at high carrier densities in the samples studied.

Relativistic analytical R -matrix theory for strong-field ionization

The analytical R-matrix (ARM) theory has been known for an efficient description of the Coulomb effects of the atomic core in strong-field ionization in the nonrelativistic regime. We generalize the ARM theory into the relativistic domain aiming at the application to strong-field ionization of highly charged ions in ultrastrong laser fields. Comparison with the relativistic Coulomb-corrected strong-field approximations (SFA) is provided, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages. The weakly relativistic asymptotics and its accordance with the nondipole Coulomb-corrected SFA are examined. As an example of a physical application of the relativistic ARM, the Coulomb enhancement of tunneling ionization probability for highly charged ions at the cutoff of the direct channel is discussed.

A Fit to the Available e+e− → Λc+Λ¯c− Cross Section Data Nearby Production Threshold by Means of a Strong Correction to the Coulomb Enhancement Factor

There are two available sets of data on the e+e−→Λc+Λ¯c− cross section at energies close to the production threshold, collected by the Belle and by the BESIII Collaborations. The measurement of the former, performed by means of the initial state radiation technique, is compatible with the presence of a resonance, called ψ(4660), observed also in other final states. On the contrary, the latter is measured an almost flat and hence non-resonant cross section in the energy region just above the production threshold, but the data stop before the possible rise in the cross section for the resonant production. We propose an effective model to describe the behavior of the data near this threshold, which is based on a Coulomb-like enhancement factor due to the strong interaction among the final state particles. In the framework of this model, it is possible to describe both datasets.

Investigation on many-body effects in micro-LEDs under ultra-high injection levels.

Micro-LEDs can work under an extremely high injection level and are widely used in high-brightness micro-displays and visible light communication. With the increase of carrier concentration, many-body effects gradually become important factors affecting devices' characteristics. Considering the effects of carrier scattering, bandgap renormalization, and Coulomb enhancement (CE), changes in the electroluminescence spectra of micro-LEDs are analyzed as the current density increases from 49.2 to 358.2 kA/cm2, the latter representing an ultra-high injection level. Affected by plasma screening, CE decreases below about 150 kA/cm2. After that, polarization screening dominates and effectively alleviates the spatial separation of electrons and holes, which results in CE increases to the maximum injection level of 358.2 kA/cm2. It is established that CE promotes radiative recombination processes. Different from the traditional phenomenon of "efficiency droop", the enhanced attraction between carriers leads to an abnormal increase of external quantum efficiency at high current density.

Defect charging and resonant levels in half-Heusler Nb1−xTixFeSb

We report 93Nb and 121Sb NMR and 57Fe Mössbauer studies combined with DFT calculations of Nb1−xTixFeSb (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.3), one of the most promising thermoelectric systems for applications above 1000 K. These studies provide local information about defects and electronic configurations in these heavily p-type materials. The NMR spin-lattice relaxation rate provides a measure of states within the valence band. With increasing x, changes of relaxation rate vs carrier concentration for different substitution fractions indicate the importance of resonant levels which do not contribute to charge transport. The chemical shift is significantly larger than expected based on DFT calculations, which we discuss in terms of an enhancement of the susceptibility due to a Coulomb enhancement mechanism. The Mössbauer spectra of Ti-substituted samples show small departures from a binomial distribution of substituted atoms, while for unsubstituted p-type NbFeSb, the amplitude of a Mössbauer satellite peak increases vs temperature, a measure of the T-dependent charging of a population of defects residing about 30 meV above the valence band edge, indicative of an impurity band at this location.

Light-Driven Electron-Hole Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-Like State in Bulk GaAs.

We investigate the photon-dressed state of excitons in bulk GaAs by optical pump-probe spectroscopy. We reveal that the high-energy branch of the dressed states continuously evolves into a singular enhancement at the absorption edge in the high-density region where the exciton picture is no longer valid. Comparing the experimental result with a simulation based on semiconductor Bloch equations, we show that the dressed state in such a high-density region is better viewed as a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer-like state, which has been theoretically anticipated to exist over decades. Having seen that the dressed state can be regarded as a macroscopic coherent state driven by an external light field, we also discuss the decoherence from the dressed state to an incoherent state after the photoexcitation in view of the Coulomb enhancement in the transient absorption.

Reactor neutrino spectral distortions play little role in mass hierarchy experiments

The Coulomb enhancement of low energy electrons in nuclear beta decay generates sharp cutoffs in the accompanying antineutrino spectrum at the beta decay endpoint energies. It has been conjectured that these features will interfere with measuring the effect of a neutrino mass hierarchy on an oscillated nuclear reactor antineutrino spectrum. These sawtooth-like features will appear in detailed reactor antineutrino spectra, with characteristic energy scales similar to the oscillation period critical to neutrino mass hierarchy determination near a 53 km baseline. However, these sawtooth-like distortions are found to contribute at a magnitude of only a few percent relative to the mass hierarchy-dependent oscillation pattern in Fourier space. In the Fourier cosine and sine transforms, the features that encode a neutrino mass hierarchy dominate by over sixteen (thirty-three) times in prominence to the maximal contribution of the sawtooth-like distortions from the detailed energy spectrum, given $3.2\%/\sqrt{E_\mathrm{vis.}/\mathrm{MeV}}$ (perfect) detector energy resolution. The effect of these distortions is shown to be negligible even when the uncertainties in the reactor spectrum, oscillation parameters, and counting statistics are considered. This result is shown to hold even when the opposite hierarchy oscillation patterns are nearly degenerate in energy space, if energy response nonlinearities are controlled to below 0.5\%. Therefore with accurate knowledge of detector energy response, the sawtooth-like features in reactor antineutrino spectra will not significantly impede neutrino mass hierarchy measurements using reactor antineutrinos.

Temperature-dependent dielectric function of bulkSrTiO3: Urbach tail, band edges, and excitonic effects

We report the temperature-dependent complex dielectric function of pristine bulk SrTiO$_3$ between 4.2 and 300 K within the energy range of 0.6-6.5 eV determined by spectroscopic ellipsometry. Fundamental indirect and direct band-gap energies have been extracted and are discussed with regard to existing state-of-the-art theoretical calculations. Furthermore, the dielectric function around the fundamental direct gap is analyzed by considering excitonic states. The excitonic effects, including the Coulomb enhancement of the continuum, are characterized using an extension of the Elliott's formula considering both the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric function. The Urbach tail below the indirect edge shows an unconventional temperature-dependent behavior correlated to the microstructural changes near the structural phase transition around 105 K from the low-temperature tetragonal phase to the cubic phase. The temperature-dependent characterization reveals that the fundamental indirect edge as well as the Urbach tail are affected conspicuously by the structural phase transition while the fundamental direct edge is not. Moreover, the indirect edge follows Varshni's rule only in the cubic phase and the direct edge exhibits an anomalous linear increase with increasing temperature.

Coulomb stress evolution over the past 200 years and seismic hazard along the Xianshuihe fault zone of Sichuan, China

This study focuses on the M≥6.7 earthquakes that have occurred since 1816 on the Xianshuihe fault zone in southwest China. The interseismic Coulomb stress accumulation and the Coulomb stress changes caused by coseismic dislocation and postseismic viscoelastic relaxation of the previous shocks were computed for different periods on the relevant fault segments. Based on these results, we analyzed the relationship between time-adjacent strong shocks and the Coulomb stress evolution before every earthquake. The analysis suggests that strong earthquakes mostly occurred in the Coulomb stress enhancement region caused by coseismic dislocation and postseismic viscoelastic relaxation of the last earthquake. Considering the Coulomb stress evolution at the fault planes of the epicentral area before earthquakes, we found that the Coulomb stress accumulation caused by the interseismic tectonic loading was dominant for most strong earthquakes. For some other earthquakes the stress changes caused by coseismic dislocation and postseismic viscoelastic relaxation of surrounding earthquakes were very significant, which may be equivalent to the effect of interseismic tectonic loading lasting hundreds of years. Based on the time-dependent probabilistic risk model and the Dieterich (1994) model, we estimate the background seismic activity and the future earthquake probability for different fault segments, using long term seismic activity and strong earthquake recurrence cycles. It is shown that the Bamei, Selaha, and Kangding segments of the Xianshuihe fault zone have high earthquake probability, and are likely to have strong earthquakes. If energy is accumulated up to the year 2050, the magnitude of an event on these three segments could reach Mw 7.2, Mw 7.0, and Mw 7.1 respectively, while if the S7 and S8 cascades rupture, the event on these segments could reach a magnitude of up to Mw 7.2.

SUSY-QCD corrections to stop annihilation into electroweak final states including Coulomb enhancement effects

We present the full $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_s)$ supersymmetric QCD corrections for stop-anti-stop annihilation into electroweak final states within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). We also incorporate Coulomb corrections due to gluon exchange between the incoming stops. Numerical results for the annihilation cross sections and the predicted neutralino relic density are presented. We show that the impact of the radiative corrections on the cosmologically preferred region of the parameter space can become larger than the current experimental uncertainty, shifting the relic bands within the considered regions of the parameter space by up to a few tens of GeV.

Optical Gain Characteristics in GaAsPN/GaPN Quantum Well Lasers for Silicon Integration

Optical gain characteristics of strain-compensated GaAsPN/GaPN quantum wells (QWs) with the GaPN barrier under 1.0 % tensile strain were investigated using the multiband effective-mass theory and the non-Markovian gain model. The transition energy linearly increases from 1.12 to 1.22 eV when P content ratio changes from 0.1 to 0.4. The theoretical transition energy reasonably agrees with the experiment. The Coulomb enhancement ratio, g <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">many</sub> /g <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">free</sub> , decreases with increasing compressive strain because the average hole effective mass decreases with increasing strain. As a result, the QW structure with a smaller compressive strain has larger optical gain than that with a larger compressive strain for higher carrier densities. On the other hand, in the case of smaller carrier densities, the QW structure with a larger compressive strain shows larger optical gain than that with a smaller compressive strain because the former has larger optical matrix element producted by Kane's parameter and quasi-Fermi level separation than the latter. The absolute value of the bandgap renormalization increases with increasing carrier density and is about 99 meV at 5×10 cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-2</sup> , which is slightly larger than that of GaAs-based or InP-based QW structures.

Experimental observation of spin-dependent electron many-body effects in CdTe

In semiconductors, the spin degree of freedom is usually disregarded in the theoretical treatment of electron many-body effects such as band-gap renormalization and screening of the Coulomb enhancement factor. Nevertheless, as was observed experimentally in GaAs, not only the single-particle phase-space filling but also many-body effects are spin sensitive. In this paper, we report on time- and polarization-resolved differential transmission pump-probe measurements in CdTe, which has the same zincblende crystal structure but different material parameters compared to that of GaAs. We show experimentally that at room temperature in CdTe—unlike in GaAs—the pump-induced decrease of transmission due to the band-gap renormalization can even exceed the transmission increase due to the phase-space filling, which enables to measure directly the spin-sensitivity of the band-gap renormalization. We also observed that the influence of the band-gap renormalization is more prominent at low temperatures.

Many-body effects on optical gain in GaAsPN/GaPN quantum well lasers for silicon integration

Many-body effects on the optical gain in GaAsPN/GaP QW structures were investigated by using the multiband effective-mass theory and the non-Markovian gain model with many-body effects. The free-carrier model shows that the optical gain peak slightly increases with increasing N composition. In addition, the QW structure with a larger As composition shows a larger optical gain than that with a smaller As composition. On the other hand, in the case of the many-body model, the optical gain peak decreases with increasing N composition. Also, the QW structure with a smaller As composition is observed to have a larger optical gain than that with a larger As composition. This can be explained by the fact that the QW structure with a smaller As or N composition shows a larger Coulomb enhancement effect than that with a larger As or N composition. This means that it is important to consider the many-body effect in obtaining guidelines for device design issues.

Improved quantitative description of Auger recombination in crystalline silicon

An accurate quantitative description of the Auger recombination rate in silicon as a function of the dopant density and the carrier injection level is important to understand the physics of this fundamental mechanism and to predict the physical limits to the performance of silicon based devices. Technological progress has permitted a near suppression of competing recombination mechanisms, both in the bulk of the silicon crystal and at the surfaces. This, coupled with advanced characterization techniques, has led to an improved determination of the Auger recombination rate, which is lower than previously thought. In this contribution we present a systematic study of the injection-dependent carrier recombination for a broad range of dopant concentrations of high-purity $n$-type and $p$-type silicon wafers passivated with state-of-the-art dielectric layers of aluminum oxide or silicon nitride. Based on these measurements, we develop a general parametrization for intrinsic recombination in crystalline silicon at 300 K consistent with the theory of Coulomb-enhanced Auger and radiative recombination. Based on this improved description we are able to analyze physical aspects of the Auger recombination mechanism such as the Coulomb enhancement.

Applicability of continuum absorption in semiconductor quantum wells to absolute absorption-strength standards

The absolute strength of two-dimensional continuum absorption in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs) was investigated for application to an absorption-strength standard. We presented an equation for the continuum-state absorbance in a QW, showing that the absorbance near the band edge is essentially described by a universal value proportional to the fine-structure constant with correction terms for band-mixing effects and Coulomb enhancement effects. By using k·p equations with the established band parameters, we calculated the absorbance with quantitative estimations of the correction terms in typical semiconductor QWs. The results indicate that the absorbance of the QW is applicable to an absorption-strength standard.

No Sommerfeld resummation factor in $$e^ + e^ - \to p\bar p$$ ?

The Sommerfeld rescattering formula is compared to the e+e- -> ppbar BaBar data at threshold and above. While there is the expected Coulomb enhancement at threshold, two unexpected outcomes have been found: |G^p (4M_p^2)|= 1, like for a pointlike fermion, and moreover data show that the resummation factor in the Sommerfeld formula is not needed. Other e+e- -> baryon-antibaryon cross sections show a similar behavior near threshold.

BABAR measurement of baryon time-like form factors via initial state radiation

BABAR has measured with unprecedented accuracy the e+e− →pp̄ and e+e− → Λ cross sections by means of the initial state radiation technique, which has the advantages of good efficiency, good energy resolution and full angular acceptance, even exactly at threshold. A peculiar feature of these cross sections is their non-vanishing values at threshold. In the case of charged baryons, this phenomenon is expected according to the Coulomb interaction between the outgoing baryon and antibaryon. Once this Coulomb enhancement factor is taken into account, the striking result is achieved that the proton form factor at threshold is |Gp(4Mp2)| = 1, that is what is expected for pointlike fermion pairs, in spite of the proton structure. However a Coulomb enhancement factor is not expected for neutral fermions, likely in contradiction with the BABAR data. Qualitatively this behaviour is consistent with Coulomb interactions at the valence quark level.

Unexpected features of e+e- $ \rightarrow$ p $ \overline{{p}}$ and e+e- $ \rightarrow$ $ \Lambda$ $ \overline{{\Lambda}}$ cross-sections near threshold

Unexpected features of the BaBar data on e + e - $ \rightarrow$ B $ \overline{{B}}$ cross-sections (B stands for baryon) are discussed. These data have been collected, with unprecedented accuracy, by means of the initial-state radiation technique, which is particularly suitable in giving good acceptance and energy resolution at threshold. A striking feature observed in the BaBar data is the non-vanishing cross-section at threshold for all these processes. This is the expectation due to the Coulomb enhancement factor acting on a charged fermion pair. In the case of e + e - $ \rightarrow$ p $ \overline{{p}}$ it is found that Coulomb final-state interactions largely dominate the cross-section and the form factor is | G p(4M 2 p)| ∼ 1 , which could be a general feature for baryons. In the case of neutral baryons an interpretation of the non-vanishing cross-section at threshold is suggested, based on quark electromagnetic interaction and taking into account the asymmetry between attractive and repulsive Coulomb factors. Besides strange baryon cross-sections are compared to U -spin invariance predictions.

Dynamic effects of breakup on fusion reactions of weakly bound nuclei

The traditional reduction methods to represent the fusion cross sections of different systems are flawed when attempting to completely eliminate the geometrical aspects, such as the heights and radii of the barriers, and the static effects associated with the excess neutrons or protons in weakly bound nuclei. We remedy this by introducing a new dimensionless universal function, which allows the separation and disentanglement of the static and dynamic aspects of the breakup coupling effects connected with the excess nucleons. Applying this new reduction procedure to fusion data of several weakly bound systems, we find a systematic suppression of complete fusion above the Coulomb barrier and enhancement below it. Different behaviors are found for the total fusion cross sections. They are appreciably suppressed in collisions of neutron–halo nuclei, while they are practically not affected by the breakup coupling in cases of stable weakly bound nuclei.