High-Efficiency InGaN/GaN Light Emitters Based on Nanophotonics and Plasmonics

We report novel methods to enhance light emission efficiencies from InGaN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) based on nanophotonics and plasmonics. First, the nanoscopic optical properties were observed and characterized based on the carrier localization and the quantum confinement Stark effect depending on the In composition of InGaN. Based on the results, we proposed that the emission efficiencies should be improved by making nanostructures, and showed actual enhancement of photoluminescence (PL) intensities by using fabricated random nanodisk and arrayed nanopillar structures. Moreover, surface plasmon (SP) coupling technique was used to enhance blue and green light emissions from InGaN/GaN QWs. We obtained a 14-fold increase in the PL intensity along with a 7-fold increase in the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) of light emission from InGaN/GaN when nanostructured Ag layers were deposited 10 nm above the QWs. The possible enhancement mechanism was discussed and reproduced by using the 3-D finite-difference time-domain simulations. Electron–hole pairs in InGaN QWs couple to electron oscillations at the metal surface and produce SPs instead of photons or phonons. This new path increases the spontaneous emission rate and the IQEs. The SP-emitter coupling technique would lead to superbright and high-speed solid-state light-emitting devices that offer realistic alternatives to conventional fluorescent light sources.      

EnergyDispersion Relations for Holes in Silicon Quantum Wells and Quantum Wires

We calculate the energy dispersion relations in Si quantum wells (QW), E(k _2D), and quantum wires (QWR), E(k _1D), focusing on the regions with negative effective mass (NEM) in the valence band. The existence of such NEM regions is a necessary condition for the current oscillations in ballistic quasineutral plasma in semiconductor structures. The frequency range of such oscillations can be extended to the terahertz region by scaling down the length of structures. Our analysis shows that silicon is a promising material for prospective NEM-based terahertz wave generators. We also found that comparing to Si QWRs, Si QWs are preferable structures for NEM-based generation in the terahertz range.     

Introducing energy broadening in semiclassical Monte Carlo simulations

Combining an insight on the quantum transport given by the Wigner function formalism and the classical perturbation theory, an algorithm has been developed that allows the introduction of collisional broadening in semiclassical electron transport Monte Carlo (MC) simulations. In the proposed algorithm, electron energy and momentum are treated as independent variables; the laws of energy and momentum conservation are fulfilled at each scattering event, but the relationship between energy and momentum is not given by the traditional expression, since Bloch states are not eigenstates of the total Hamiltonian. The results obtained for a simple model semiconductor demonstrate that the non-physical instabilities observed in previous attempts to introduce collisional broadening in semiclassical MC simulations have been removed. The algorithm is suitable for application in MC simulations of realistic device models.     

Low-temperature enhancement of the thermoelectric Seebeck coefficient in gated 2D semiconductor nanomembranes

An increasing need for effective thermal sensors, together with dwindling energy resources, have created renewed interests in thermoelectric (TE), or solid-state, energy conversion and refrigeration using semiconductor based nanostructures. Effective control of electron and phonon transport due to confinement, interface, and quantum effects has made nanostructures a good way to achieve more efficient thermoelectric energy conversion. Theoretically, a narrow delta-function shaped transport distribution function (TDF) is believed to provide the highest Seebeck coefficient, but has proven difficult to achieve in practice. We propose a novel approach to achieving a narrow window-shaped TDF through a combination of a step-like 2-dimensional density-of-states (DOS) and inelastic optical phonon scattering. A shift in the onset of scattering with respect to the step-like DOS creates a TDF which peaks over a narrow band of energies. We perform a numerical simulation of carrier transport in silicon nanoribbons based on numerically solving the coupled Schrödinger-Poisson equations together with transport in the semi-classical Boltzmann formalism. Our calculations confirm that inelastic scattering of electrons, combined with the step-like DOS in 2-dimensional nanostructures leads to the formation of a narrow window-function shaped TDF and results in enhancement of Seebeck coefficient beyond what was already achieved through confinement alone. A further analysis on maximizing this enhancement by tuning the material properties is also presented.     

Effect of nitrogen on the band structure and material gain of In/sub y/Ga/sub 1-y/As/sub 1-x/N/sub x/-GaAs quantum wells

The conduction subband structure of InGaAsN-GaAs quantum wells (QWs) is calculated using the band anticrossing model, and its influence on the design of long-wavelength InGaAsN-GaAs QW lasers is analyzed. A good agreement with experimental values is found for the QW zone center transition energies. In particular, a different dependence of the effective bandgap with temperature when compared to the equivalent N-free structure is predicted by the model and experimentally observed. A detailed analysis of the conduction subband structure shows that nitrogen strongly decreases the electron energies and increases the effective masses. A very small N incorporation is also found to increase the nonparabolicity, but this effect saturates for higher nitrogen contents. Both the In content and well width decrease the effective masses and nonparabolicity of the conduction subbands. Material gain as a function of the injection level is calculated for InGaAsN-GaAs QWs for moderate carrier densities. The peak gain at a fixed carrier density is found to be reduced, compared to InGaAs, for a small N content, but this reduction tends to saturate when the N content is further increased. For the gain peak energy, a monotonous strong shift to lower energies is obtained for increasing N content, supporting the feasibility of 1.55-/spl mu/m emission from InGaAsN-GaAs QW laser diodes.     

Quantum-mechanical effects in multiple-gate MOSFETs

In this work, a self-consistent solution of the 2D Schrödinger-Poisson equations is used to analyze Multiple-Gate MOSFETs. Classical simulations overestimate the peak density compared to quantum simulations and therefore the total electron density considered to calculate the current. The impact of the corner rounding on the electron distribution has also been analyzed. New devices, such as the Omega-gate MOSFETs have been studied as a function of the buried gate length.     

Unified simulation of transport and luminescence in optoelectronic nanostructures

Computer simulation of microscopic transport and light emission in semiconductor nanostructures is often restricted to an isolated system of a single quantum well, wire or dot. In this work we report on the development of a simulator for devices with various kinds of nanostructures which exhibit quantization in different dimensionalities. Our approach is based upon the partition of the carrier densities within each quantization region into bound and unbound populations. A bound carrier is treated fully coherent in the directions of confinement, whereas it is assumed to be totally incoherent with a motion driven by classical drift and diffusion in the remaining directions. Coupling of the populations takes place through electrostatics and carrier capture. We illustrate the applicability of our approach with a well-wire structure.     

Carrier Dynamics in UV InGaN Multiple Quantum Well Inverted Hexagonal Pits

The emission and recombination characteristics of UV or blue light emission from InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) structures influenced by V-shaped pits have been investigated by near-field and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements. Localization of charge carriers due to the potential barriers caused by the V-shaped pit formation is observed to be modified by thermal excitation. Temperature dependence of recombination dynamics shows evidence of a more complex potential barrier produced by the inverted hexagonal pits embedded within the multiple QWs. The emission from the narrow V-shaped pit QWs shows anomalous temperature dependence behavior that is significantly different from the emission from c-plane QWs. The carrier recombination process in c-plane QWs is significantly longer ~ 5 ns compared to the ~ 1.5 ns in V-shaped pit QWs at low temperatures due to the larger piezoelectric fields in wider wells. At room temperature, the recombination lifetimes are comparable due to increased carrier separation and delocalization within the V-shaped pit QWs.     

Ab initio Study of the Si Adsorption on Mo(110)

The energetics and the electronic structure of the Si/Mo(110) surface have been investigated using density functional theory calculations based on the generalized gradient approximation. The calculated potential energy surface for a single Si adatom reveals that a hollow site is favored for the adsorption of Si on Mo(110). The energy barrier for hopping between the hollow sites is located at the bridge site and is found to be 0.64 eV. The electron density plot indicates that four Mo-Si covalent bonds were formed around the Si atom at the hollow site. According to the surface formation energy for different Si coverage, 1 ML Si/Mo(110)–p(1× 1) is energetically favorable for a Si-rich environment. For the Si-poor case, the clean Mo(110) surface is the most stable structure.     

Phonon exacerbated quantum interference effects in III-V nanowire transistors

In recent years, a great deal of attention has been focused on the development of quantum wire transistors as a means of extending Moore’s Law. Here we present, results of fully three-dimensional, self-consistent quantum mechanical device simulations of InAs tri-gate nanowire transistor (NWT). The effects of inelastic scattering have been included as real-space self-energy terms. We find that the position of dopant atoms in these devices can lead a reduction in the amount of scattering the carriers experience. We find that the combination of deeply buried dopant atoms and the high energy localization of polar optical phonon processes allow devices to recover their ballistic behavior even in the presence of strong inelastic phonon processes. However, we find that dopant atoms close to the source-channel interface cause severe quantum interference effects leading to significant performance reduction.     

The Effective Conduction Band Edge Method of Quantum Correction to the Monte Carlo Device Simulation

To include quantum effects, a quantum correction is made to the semi-classical Monte Carlo (MC) simulation by the effective conduction band edge (ECBE) method. The quantum corrected potential energy can be calculated from the classical potential energy by the ECBE equation and thus the quantum mechanical force in the simulation replaces the classical force. Under the non-equilibrium condition, carriers have a temperature different from the lattice. For the simulation of a double-gate MOSFET, we replace thermal energy in the ECBE equation with the average value of the stress tensor along each transverse line, to account for the variation of the electron “temperature” along the longitudinal direction. A 3 nm thick double gate nMOSFET is simulated. The result shows that electrons now see a higher barrier from the source to the drain if the carrier temperature is considered, resulting in a smaller drain current compared to that obtained from the previous ECBE method.     

Piezoresistance effect in n-type silicon: from bulk to nanowires

The first order piezoresistance coefficients are examined in the n-type silicon structures with different dimensionality of electron gas: bulk crystal, quantum film (well) and quantum wire. The detail research involves quantum kinetic approach to calculation of the kinetic coefficients (conductivity, mobility, concentration) of electrons in the strained and unstrained states. As scattering system were adopted ionized impurities, longitudinal acoustic phonons and surface roughness. Detailed studies have been carried out for dependences of electron mobility and piezoresistance coefficients on confining dimensions. An alternative explanation is proposed for origin of the giant piezoresistance effect in n-type silicon nanostructures. Comparison of the obtained results shows not only qualitative but even sufficient quantitative agreement with experimental data.     

Numerical analysis of /spl alpha/ parameters and extinction ratios in InGaAsP-InP optical modulators

The /spl alpha/ parameters and extinction ratios of InGaAsP-InP electroabsorption (EA) modulators and Mach-Zehnder (MZ) modulators are theoretically investigated. The bound states of excitons in quantum wells (QWs) under electric field are calculated through the finite-difference method, and quasi-bound states are obtained by the transfer-matrix method. Reducing the heights of the potential barriers of the QWs is prerequisite to achieving small values of the /spl alpha/ parameter for EA modulators and low driving voltages for MZ modulators. Bulk EA modulators are shown to inherently have relatively small /spl alpha/ parameters; however, they also require a tradeoff between the extinction ratio and the insertion loss. The /spl alpha/ parameters of symmetrical and /spl pi/-phase-shifted MZ modulators in the single- and dual-drive cases are also discussed.     

Blueshifting of InGaAsP-InP laser diodes using a low-energyion-implantation technique: comparison between strained andlattice-matched quantum-well structures

Blueshifted InGaAsP-InGaAs-InP laser diodes have been fabricated using a technique that includes a low-energy ion implantation, used to generate point defects near the surface of the structure, followed by a thermal anneal which causes the diffusion of these defects through the quantum wells (QWs). This diffusion of point defects induces a local intermixing of atoms in the QWs and barriers, which results in a decrease in the emission wavelength of the devices. Results obtained with strained and lattice-matched QW structures are compared. For lattice-matched structures, electroluminescence wavelength shifts as large as 76 nm were obtained. Strained QW structures presented a much smaller blueshift (≈10 nm). In both cases, we observed no significant change of the threshold current caused by the intermixing process     

Quantum Lattice-Gas Automata Simulation of Electronic Wave Propagation in Nanostructures

We report the two- and three-dimensional quantum lattice-gas automata simulation for one-particle electronic wave propagation in nanostructures. The transmission coefficient of the electronic wave through the two-dimensional quantum point contact is investigated taking account of the surface roughness of the confinement wall. It is demonstrated that the electron transmission is significantly affected by the surface roughness pattern even if the same roughness parameter is assumed. We also perform the three-dimensional simulation, and the wave propagation in the structure like an ultrathin-body MOSFET is visualized.     

Material Properties of Si-Ge/Ge Quantum Wells

Germanium (Ge) and silicon-germanium (Si-Ge) have the potential to integrate optics with Si IC technology. The quantum-confined Stark effect, a strong electroabsorption mechanism often observed in III-V quantum wells (QWs), has been demonstrated in Si-Ge/Ge QWs, allowing optoelectronic modulators in such group IV materials. Here, based on photocurrent electroabsorption experiments on different samples and fitting of the resulting allowed and nominally forbidden transitions, we propose more accurate values for key parameters such as effective masses and band offsets that are required for device design. Tunneling resonance modeling including conduction band nonparabolicity was used to fit the results with good consistency between the experiments and the fitted transitions.     

General 2D Schrödinger-Poisson solver with open boundary conditions for nano-scale CMOS transistors

Employing the quantum transmitting boundary (QTB) method, we have developed a two-dimensional Schrödinger-Poisson solver in order to investigate quantum transport in nano-scale CMOS transistors subjected to open boundary conditions. In this paper we briefly describe the building blocks of the solver that was originally written to model silicon devices. Next, we explain how to extend the code to semiconducting materials such as germanium, having conduction bands with energy ellipsoids that are neither parallel nor perpendicular to the channel interfaces or even to each other. The latter introduces mixed derivatives in the 2D effective mass equation, thereby heavily complicating the implementation of open boundary conditions. We present a generalized quantum transmitting boundary method that mainly leans on the completeness of the eigenstates of the effective mass equation. Finally, we propose a new algorithm to calculate the chemical potentials of the source and drain reservoirs, taking into account their mutual interaction at high drain voltages. As an illustration, we present the potential and carrier density profiles obtained for a (111) Ge NMOS transistor as well as the ballistic current characteristics.     

Electronic properties of single-wall carbon nanotubes and their dependence on synthetic methods

Since their discovery in 1991, carbon nanotubes have been intensively studied, and a number of new applications have been identified. Applications range from nanoelectronics to hydrogen absorption for battery electrodes and fuel cells. Because of their high electrical conductivity and strength, high sensitivity atomic force microscopes already use carbon nanotubes for their tips, and carbon nanostructures are also used as electron beam emitters for medical and scientific equipment. Electron emission is directly correlated with the work function and the ionization potential of carbon nanotubes. Gaussian 98 software was used to perform theoretical quantum calculations on a limited set of HyperChem 5.01 simulated metallic single-wall carbon nanotubes. These initial sets of calculations show that bandgaps and work functions of these small carbon nanostructures are dependent upon the diameter of the tubes, and to a lesser degree so is the ionization potential. In addition, we demonstrate how the manufacturing methods can directly affect the diameter of the nanotubes produced, and therefore directly influence the electrical properties of the nanotubes.