Peak Energy Variation Research Articles

Tackling toxicity and stability using eco-friendly metal-halide ion substituted perovskite nanocrystals for advanced display color conversion

In recent years organic–inorganic hybrid halide perovskites nanocrystals have made a remarkable impact in display color converting layer application. However, lead toxicity and stability issues always pose arduous challenges. In this regard, the incorporation of a suitable metal ion to reduce toxicity and enhance stability is a widely tested method. In this study, we used a simple ligand-assisted reprecipitation (LARP) technique to simultaneously introduce metal ion and halide ion substitution by synthesizing MAPb1-xZnxBr3-2xCl2x nanocrystals (NCs). Being eco-friendly with a smaller ionic radius than lead ion, zinc metal ion was chosen as a substitute. With the variation of Zn2+ concentration, the highest quantum yield of 95 % was recorded with an emission width of 21 nm. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) studies revealed the higher optical phonon-exciton interaction after Zn2+ incorporation leading to radiative transition in NCs. Variation of PL peak energy with temperature revealed the reduced thermal chromaticity of Zn2+ incorporated NCs making them suitable for display application. Further, these NCs maintained a stable cubic structure and luminescence up to 150 °C, indicating higher thermal stability. The MAPb0.9Zn0.1Br2.8Cl0.2 (x = 0.1 or 10 mol%) NCs embedded in PMMA (poly (methyl methacrylate) polymer matrix coated LED emits narrow width, green light with color coordinate (0.15, 0.79), which is closer to green coordinate (0.17, 0.79) in Rec.2020. This helps to reproduce close to 97 % color gamut of Rec.2020. This research paves the way for finding less toxic and stable green light-emitting materials instead of cadmium-based molecules.

Impact of blue-shifted effective joint density of electronic states on the photoluminescence of nanostructured silicon

Light emission from nanostructured silicon has triggered tremendous research interest for three decades. Yet, the exact mechanism of photoluminescence from silicon-based nano-systems is still not completely understood. It is generally believed that quantum confinement and surface chemistry play a combined role in determining the luminescence characteristics of nano silicon. In this work, we show that the evolution of electron-hole effective joint density of states, resulting from the relaxation of k-selection rule, can account for the much-observed temperature dependent shift of the luminescence spectra of nanostructured silicon. Deconvolution of the emission characteristics reveals three distinct radiative recombination channels those can be attributed to band-to-band, band-to-trap and trap-to-trap transitions. At temperatures below ∼200 K, the peak due to band-to-band transition exhibit a nearly linear blue shift with increasing temperature while at higher temperatures, this trend is reversed. The rate of variation of emission peak energy with temperature is also found to be dependent on the effective crystallite size. These results are explained in terms of shift in the effective joint density of state function of photogenerated electron-hole pairs. The shift provides experimental evidence of the pseudo-direct transitions in the quantum-confined nanostructure of silicon.

Transient behavior of AlGaN photoluminescence induced by carbon-related defect reactions.

We have observed the transient behavior in the AlGaN photoluminescence. Under an excitation of 325 nm He-Cd laser beam, the blue luminescence (BL) bands and yellow luminescence (YL) bands of AlGaN vary with increasing illumination time. We propose that the chemical reactions between BL-related CNON-Hi (CN-Hi) and YL-related CN-Hi (CN) defect states are the cause of such a phenomenon. The BL transition temperature (Tt) is defined as the temperature at which the intensity of BL bands induced by CNON-Hi is equal to that originated from CN-Hi. Only at Tt, BL shows a peak energy variation due to the exposure. The Tt of AlGaN is higher than what is similarly detected in GaN because of the high reactivity of Al to O.

Investigation of Micromorphology and Carrier Recombination Dynamics for InGaN/GaN Multi-Quantum Dots Grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy

InGaN quantum dots (QDs) are promising candidates for GaN-based all-visible optoelectronic devices such as micro light-emitting diode and laser. In this study, self-assembled InGaN/GaN multi-quantum dots (MQDs) have been grown by plasma-assisted molecular beam epitaxy on c-plane GaN-on-sapphire template. A high density of over 3.8 × 1010 cm−2 is achieved and InGaN QDs exhibit a relatively uniform size distribution and good dispersity. Strong localization effect in as-grown InGaN QDs has been evidenced by temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL). The variation of peak energy is as small as 35 meV with increasing temperature from 10 K to 300 K, implying excellent temperature stability of emission wavelength for InGaN MQDs. Moreover, the radiative and nonradiative recombination times were calculated by time-resolved PL (TRPL) measurements, and the temperature dependence of PL decay times reveal that radiative recombination dominates the recombination process due to the low dislocation density of QDs structure.

Mach-Zehnder interferometer based on fiber taper and fiber core mismatch for humidity sensing

A simple and high sensitivity optical fiber relative humidity (RH) sensor based on Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) is proposed and demonstrated in this paper. A single-mode fiber and a graded-index multimode fiber are connected by a fiber taper to form a section. Then an uncoated dispersion compensation fiber is sandwiched between two short sections of the graded-index multimode fiber.Therefore, a sensing structure is set up as a single-mode fiber-taper fiber-graded-index multimode fiber-dispersion compensation fiber-graded-index multimode fiber-taper laser-single-mode fiber. The taper fiber is used to augment the energy of the cladding mode. The two nodes of the graded-index multimode fiber can be looked as a mode coupler. Thus an MZI is constructed. Since the external RH change can make the transmission spectrum energy changed, we can obtain the RH by detecting the peak energy variation of the interference pattern induced by the evanescent-field interaction. The experimental results show that the peak energy changes linearly with surrounding relative humidity. Under the condition of 35%Rh-85%RH, the sensitivity of the sensor with a 20 mm dispersion compensation fiber is -0.0668 dB/%RH and the linearity is 0.995. Moreover, temperature response characteristics are investigated. Experimental results suggest that the transmission spectrum energy of the sensor is insensitive to temperature. With temperature increasing, the transmission spectrum presents obviously a red-shift, yet the peak energy of the monitoring point barely moves, which demonstrates its potential for measuring simultaneously RH and temperature. The proposed sensor has a small size and simple manufacturing process, which can make it widely used to measure RH.

Quantum confinement dependence of exciton localization in a-plane GaN/AlGaN multiquantum wells investigated by temperature dependent photoluminescence

The exciton localization effect in nonpolar a-plane GaN/AlGaN multiquantum wells (MQWs) structures with different quantum confinements (different well thicknesses or Al molar fractions of barrier) has been investigated by temperature dependent photoluminescence (PL). An “S-shaped” PL peak energy variation is observed in the spectra, indicating the existence of localized states. The exciton localization energy is larger in the MQWs with stronger quantum confinement. A good agreement of the localization energy is obtained by theoretical calculation assuming ± 5% fluctuation of well thickness, which demonstrates that potential minima caused by well thickness fluctuation are the major origin of exciton localization. In addition, the internal quantum efficiency shows more than 3 times enhancement with decreasing the well width from 8.1 to 2.7 nm due to the strong exciton localization which can prevent the carriers from trapping into the nonradiative recombination centers.

Submonolayer Uniformity of Type II InAs/GaInSb W-shaped Quantum Wells Probed by Full-Wafer Photoluminescence Mapping in the Mid-infrared Spectral Range.

The spatial uniformity of GaSb- and InAs substrate-based structures containing type II quantum wells was probed by means of large-scale photoluminescence (PL) mapping realized utilizing a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The active region was designed and grown in a form of a W-shaped structure with InAs and GaInSb layers for confinement of electrons and holes, respectively. The PL spectra were recorded over the entire 2-in. wafers, and the parameters extracted from each spectrum, such as PL peak energy position, its linewidth and integrated intensity, were collected in a form of two-dimensional spatial maps. Throughout the analysis of these maps, the wafers’ homogeneity and precision of the growth procedure were investigated. A very small variation of PL peak energy over the wafer indicates InAs quantum well width fluctuation of only a fraction of a monolayer and hence extraordinary thickness accuracy, a conclusion further supported by high uniformity of both the emission intensity and PL linewidth.

Temperature-Dependent Photoluminescence of Ag2Se Quantum Dots

The time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy was employed to analyze the optical properties of Ag2Se quantum dots with different diameters at temperatures of 80–360 K. The photoluminescence lifetime measurement disclosed that in the low-energy electronic structure there were two dominating emissive “in-gap” states associated with surface defect and intrinsic states, which were further confirmed by Gaussian fitting of the photoluminescence spectra. The temperature-dependent emission peak energy was fitted to phenomenological equations to extract the average phonon energy, the Huang–Rhys factor, and the excitonic acoustic phonon coupling coefficient. The relatively large phonon energy and small Huang–Rhys factor were demonstrated, which induced the small variation of emission peak energy in the low-temperature range. Meanwhile, the photoluminescence line width increased with temperature and was analyzed based on the standard equation describing the temperature dependence of the width of the ground state...

Anomalous temperature-dependent photoluminescence peak energy in InAlN alloys

InAlN has been studied by means of temperature-dependent time-integrated photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence. The variation of PL peak energy did not follow the behavior predicted by Varshni formula, and a faster redshift with increasing temperature was observed. We used a model that took account of the thermal activation and thermal transfer of localized excitons to describe and explain the observed behavior. A good fitting to the experiment result is obtained. We believe the anomalous temperature dependence of PL peak energy shift can be attributed to the temperature-dependent redistribution of localized excitons induced by thermal activation and thermal transfer in the strongly localized states. V-shaped defects are thought to be a major factor causing the strong localized states in our In0.153Al0.847N sample.

InGaN/GaN blue light emitting diodes grown on Si(110) and Si(111) substrates

In this paper, InGaN/GaN multiple quantum-well blue light emitting diodes (LEDs) are successfully grown on Si(110) and Si(111) substrates. The micro-structural properties of the LEDs are characterized by means of high-resolution X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectra, and temperature dependent photoluminescence measurements. The results show that the sample on Si(110) substrate exhibits the high crystal quality, weak tensile strain, and large internal quantum efficiency. The optoelectronic properties of the LED devices are also investigated. The I-V curves indicate that the LED devices fabricated on Si(110) and Si(111) substrates have similar series resistances and low reverse leakage currents, but the LED devices fabricated on Si(110) substrate possess lower turn-on voltages. The relationship between light output intensity and injection current suggests that the LED device fabricated on Si(110) substrate has a strong light output efficiency. The study on the variation of spectral peak energy with injection current of the LED device reveals that LED device on Si(110) substrate presents a smaller spectral shift range when increasing the injection current. And the smaller spectral shift range reflects the weak quantum-confined Stark effect in the device, which can be attributed to the high crystal quality and weak strain between well layer and barrier film in the LED sample grown on Si(110).

Ultraviolet emission efficiency enhancement of a-plane AlGaN/GaN multiple-quantum-wells with increasing quantum well thickness

The defect-induced carrier localization in nonpolar a-plane (Al,Ga)N/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) structures with different well thickness have been investigated. A strong variation of temperature-dependent photoluminescence peak energy was observed and attributed to the existence of the localized states. The degree of carrier localization in these defect-induced states was more prominent in the case of MQWs with the wider well width. In addition, the ultraviolet light emission efficiency revealed a 3-fold enhancement with increasing the well width from 1.6 nm to 7.3 nm, due to the strong carrier localization generated from the quantum-wire-like features formed by the intersection between basal stacking faults and quantum wells.

STRUCTURAL AND OPTICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CdS:Fe THIN FILMS PREPARED BY FLASH EVAPORATION METHOD

CdS thin layers of 250 nm thick doped with zero, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 weight percents iron were deposited on glass substrates by modified flash evaporation technique in vacuum at the pressure of 5 × 10−6 mbar. The structure of the films was investigated by X-ray diffractometry. It was revealed that the films had hexagonal structure with (002) preferred orientation. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was employed to study the surface morphology of the prepared samples. It was found from FESEM images that the Fe -doped CdS film showed more surface uniformity. Optical absorption data of the films were used to measure the band gap of the films. It was found that the band gap of the samples decreased upon increasing the Iron concentration. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra of the CdS:Fe thin films were used to study most prominent excitation peaks within the energy range (1.6–2.6 eV). The variation in peak energy was observed upon increasing the Fe content in the films.

Advantages and remaining issues of state-of-the-art m-plane freestanding GaN substrates grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy for m-plane InGaN epitaxial growth

Advantages and remaining issues of state-of-the-art m-plane freestanding GaN (FS-GaN) substrates grown by halide vapor phase epitaxy (HVPE) for m-plane InxGa1 − xN epitaxial film growth by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy are described. Because of the low threading dislocation and basal-plane stacking fault densities, improved quantum efficiency and short radiative lifetime are achieved for the near-band-edge emission of 200–250 nm thick m-plane pseudomorphic InxGa1 − xN (x ⩽ 0.14) epilayers. Values of full-width at half-maximum for the x-ray ω-rocking curves remain unchanged as the substrate values being 80 and 60 arcsec for the (100) diffraction with 〈0001〉 and azimuths, respectively, and 80 arcsec for the (102) diffraction. As the surface flatness is greatly improved, the In-incorporation efficiency (ηIninc) is lower than the cases for conventional c-plane growth and m-plane growths on defective GaN bases. The former originates from nonidentical surface kinetics, and the latter is due to the reduction in the area of inclined and tilted planes. Sub-micrometer-wide zonary patterns parallel to the c-axis and 2 μm long axis figure-of-eight patterns parallel to the a-axis are clearly visualized in the monochromatic cathodoluminescence (CL) intensity images. Because the spatio-time-resolved CL measurement reveals very little spatial variation of low-temperature radiative lifetime, the slight peak energy variation is interpreted to originate from nonidentical ηIninc for the growing surfaces exhibiting various miscut angles. The figure-of-eight patterns are ascribed to originate from the anisotropic, severe m-plane tilt mosaic along the a-axis of the GaN substrate, and the zonary patterns may originate from the m-plane tilt mosaic along the c-axis. Further reduction in the tilt and twist mosaics is necessary for HVPE of FS-GaN substrates, in order to grow homogeneous InGaN epilayers.

Implementation of Spatio-Time-Resolved Cathodoluminescence Spectroscopy for Studying Local Carrier Dynamics in a Low Dislocation Density m-Plane In0.05Ga0.95N Epilayer Grown on a Freestanding GaN Substrate

Spatio-time-resolved cathodoluminescence (STRCL) spectroscopy is implemented to assess the local carrier dynamics in a 70-nm-thick, very low threading dislocation (TD) density, pseudomorphic m-plane In0.05Ga0.95N epilayer grown on a freestanding GaN substrate by metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Although TDs or stacking faults are absent, sub-micrometer-wide zonary patterns parallel to the c-axis and 2-µm-long-axis figure-of-8 patterns parallel to the a-axis are clearly visualized in the monochromatic cathodoluminescence intensity images. Because the STRCL measurement reveals very little spatial variation of low-temperature radiative lifetime, the considerable peak energy variation is interpreted to originate from nonidentical In-incorporation efficiency for the growing surfaces exhibiting various miscut angles. The figure-of-8 patterns are ascribed to originate from the anisotropic, severe m-plane tilt mosaic along the a-axis of the GaN substrate, and the zonary patterns may originate from the m-plane tilt mosaic along the c-axis.

A computational investigation of the impact of aberrated Gaussian laser pulses on electron beam properties in laser-wakefield acceleration experiments

Critical to the performance of any future accelerator based on the laser wakefield accelerator is the response of the system to perturbations from ideal. In this paper, we use particle-in-cell simulation using a modified version of the OSIRIS 2.0 framework to demonstrate that comatic optical aberrations in a nominally Gaussian laser pulse are self-corrected by the plasma response, leading to stable propagation and therefore little variation in peak energy, energy spread, or peak current of the accelerated bunch, even for serious aberrations. However, the comatic aberration does lead to enhanced transverse beam emittance in the direction of the coma. Although this may be deleterious to the performance of an accelerator, one useful outcome is that the increased oscillation amplitude of electrons in the wake structure may lead to increased synchrotron radiation emission, which would be partially polarized in the direction of coma.

Optical identification of electronic state levels of an asymmetric InAs/InGaAs/GaAs dot-in-well structure

We have studied the electronic state levels of an asymmetric InAs/InGaAs/GaAs dot-in-well structure, i.e., with an In0.15Ga0.85As quantum well (QW) as capping layer above InAs quantum dots (QDs), via temperature-dependent photoluminescence, photo-modulated reflectance, and rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatments. It is shown that the carrier transfer via wetting layer (WL) is impeded according to the results of temperature dependent peak energy and line width variation of both the ground states (GS) and excited states (ES) of QDs. The quenching of integrated intensity is ascribed to the thermal escape of electron from the dots to the complex In0.15Ga0.85As QW + InAs WL structure. Additionally, as the RTA temperature increases, the peak of PL blue shifts and the full width at half maximum shrinks. Especially, the intensity ratio of GS to ES reaches the maximum when the energy difference approaches the energy of one or two LO phonon(s) of InAs bulk material, which could be explained by phonon-enhanced inter-sublevels carrier relaxation in such asymmetric dot-in-well structure.PACS: 73.63.Kv; 73.61.Ey; 78.67.Hc; 81.16.Dn

Evidence of decay of flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features with electron temperature in solar flares

We report observational evidence of the decay of the flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features as a function of plasma electron temperature in solar flares in comparison to that theoretically predicted by Phillips (2004). We present the study of spectral analysis of 14 flares observed by the Solar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS) — Low Energy Detector (SLD) payload. The SLD payload employs the state-of-the-art solid state detectors, viz., Si PIN and Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CZT) devices. The sub-keV energy resolution of Si PIN detector allows us to study the Fe-line and Fe-Ni line features appearing at 6.7 and 8 keV, respectively, in greater detail. In order to best-fit the whole spectrum at one time in the desired energy range between 4 and 25 keV we considered Gaussian-line, the multi-thermal power-law and broken power-law functions. We found that the flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features decays with flare electron temperature by the asymptotic form of polynomial of inverse third order. The relative flux ratio is ∼30 at temperature 12 MK which drops to half, ∼15 at 20 MK, and at further higher temperatures it decreases smoothly reaching to ∼8 at ∼50 MK. The flux ratio, however, at a given flare plasma temperature, and its decrease with temperature is significantly lower than that predicted theoretically. We propose that the difference may be due to the consideration of higher densities of Fe and Fe-Ni lines in the theoretical model of Phillips (2004). We suggest revising the Fe and Fe-Ni line densities in the corona. The decay of flux ratio explains the variation of equivalent width and peak energy of these line features with temperature.

Deep ultraviolet emission mechanisms in highly excited Al0.79Ga0.21N/AlN quantum wells

AbstractExcitation power dependence of photoluminescence (PL) properties was investigated on high‐quality Al0.79Ga0.21N/AlN multiple quantum wells (MQWs). The MQWs were grown by recently developed growth method, modified migration enhanced epitaxy based on metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy.Clear transition of emission mechanisms from the exciton many body effect to electron‐hole plasma was observed as the excitation intensity was increased. The variation of PL peak energy was reasonably explained by bandgap renormalization, Burstein‐Moss shift, and screening of polarization‐induced electric fields. (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Study of the Excitation Power Dependent Internal Quantum Efficiency in InGaN/GaN LEDs Grown on Patterned Sapphire Substrate

The mechanisms of the excitation power dependent internal quantum efficiency in InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) LEDs grown on the planar and the patterned sapphire substrates (PSS) at temperature of 15 and 300 K were investigated. From observation the tendency of emission peak energy and carrier lifetime variation in MQWs with different excitation power for both LED samples, we conclude the internal quantum efficiency would increase as coulomb screening effect dominates at lower carrier injection stage and decrease due to the band-filling effect at higher density stage. At room temperature, the majority of the initial injected carriers would be first consumed by the thermal activated nonradiative centers that hinder the further achievement of high-efficiency LED devices. Experimentally, the internal quantum efficiency of the LED grown on the PSS is ~70% and that of the LED grown on the planar sapphire substrate is ~62%. For the LED grown on the PSS, the observed higher internal quantum efficiency is due to the larger activation energy Therefore, the reduction of dislocation defects and the prevention of injected carriers escaping from extended states would be a promising prospective for InGaN/GaN MQWs LEDs to achieve high internal quantum efficiency.

Excited state distribution of reflected hydrogen atoms at metal surfaces – Development of theoretical models

Numerical methods were developed to study single electron capture by translating hydrogen atoms above metal surfaces. The present method gives predictions for hitherto unknown population distribution of excited species in hydrogen atoms reflected at the metal surfaces. The excited state abundance was calculated for Mo surface. Kinetic energy distribution of the reflected atoms was taken into account with the aid of the Monte-Carlo simulation code (ACAT). Energy distribution associated with the 3d 2 excited state in reflected neutrals consistently explains peak energy variation with incident energies of Doppler-shifted D α lines measured by Tanabe et al. Occupation probability of the magnetic sub-levels is obtained to be highly polarized. It suggests strong anisotropy in angular distribution of photon emission from the excited states created via the surface electron capture.