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This Letter reports low-temperature (700 °C) growth of heavily Si-doped GaN (n++GaN) by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition with a resistivity as low as 1.9 × 10−4 Ω·cm and an atomically smooth surface. Indium adatoms added during the growth of n++GaN play an important role in improving both the surface morphology and free electron concentration. On the one hand, acting as surfactant, they greatly boost the adatoms surface mobility at low growth temperature and mitigate Si-induced anti-surfactant effect. On the other hand, they can effectively suppress the formation of compensating defects, thus contributing to an extremely high electron concentration of 2.8 × 1020 cm−3. This high-quality n++GaN was further applied to the realization of Ohmic contacts with an ultra-low contact resistance for AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors. The carrier gas was carefully modulated for the selective area epitaxy (SAE) of n++GaN to facilitate the nucleation of GaN on the dielectric mask, which effectively suppressed the undesired mass transport and resulted in a uniform SAE of n++GaN in the recessed source/drain regions. A nearly defect-free interface between the n++GaN and two-dimensional electron gas channel has been also realized, and the resistance induced by the interface was only 0.03 Ω·mm. As a result, an ultra-low contact resistance of 0.07 Ω·mm has been realized. This work lays a solid foundation for further improving the performance of GaN-based RF and power devices.

The thin film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) has emerged as a promising choice for liquid sensors because of its high frequency and sensitivity. To investigate the potential of FBAR devices working as the liquid sensors, we study the operating law of FBAR in liquid environments and explore the different loading effects of liquid on the shear mode and longitudinal mode. By analyzing the device and liquid interactions, we modify the Mason model of FBAR in the liquid environment. Subsequently, the influence of the piezoelectric film with different tilt angles and liquids on the characteristics of FBAR is discussed. We also prepared Sc0.2Al0.8N film-based FBAR to confirm the influence of different liquid environments on the resonant performances. The results show that the frequency drift of FBAR in the shear mode is related to density and viscosity of liquid, and the frequency drift of FBAR in the longitudinal mode is related to bulk modulus and density of liquid. The resonant frequency of FBAR in the shear mode is more sensitive with glycerol solution than that of FBAR in the longitudinal mode. This work can provide a research basis for the application of FBAR liquid sensors.

Van der Waals heterostructure based on 2D materials is a promising technology for high-performance optoelectronic devices because of its tunable bandgaps and optical properties. However, photodetectors with a low dark current and a fast response speed commonly lose their photoresponsivity. The recovery current induced by the Schottky barrier height variation cancels out the device's reverse bias current in this paper, resulting in a quasi-vertical MoSe2 photodiode with ultralow dark current (2/graphene heterojunction, resulting in a fast response time of 1.5 ms and a high photoresponsivity of 19.72 A/W. Furthermore, the Au/MoSe2 forms a Schottky contact, which is asymmetrical to the Ohmic contact formed by the MoSe2/graphene, enabling the proposed device to achieve high-performance self-powered photodetection. Our work shows an alternative approach to improve the performance of future electronic and optoelectronic applications.

The pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique has been proved to be able to grow oxide thin films with high structural quality with precisely controlled composition and thickness to achieve designed optical and electronical properties established in alloyed semiconductors and heterostructures. In this Letter, inorganic halide perovskite CsPb(IxClyBr1−x−y)3 epitaxial alloyed films on (001)-SrTiO3(STO) substrates were grown by PLD. The film crystal quality, phase stability, and the epitaxial relationship between the film and substrate were characterized with a detailed x-ray diffraction technique like high-resolution reciprocal spatial mapping and ϕ-scan. In addition, the photocarrier dynamics of the alloyed epitaxial films were investigated by photophysics spectroscopy, including steady and femtosecond transient optical absorption spectroscopy and temperature-dependent and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. The bandgap of the CsPbX3 films was tuned from 1.75 to 2.98 eV by substituting X with I/Br/Cl and their mixture of different ratios. Free exciton emissions were observed at a low temperature photoluminescence spectrum (PL, 10 K), which confirmed the high crystal and optical quality of the epitaxial perovskite alloyed films except the CsPbI3 film. The femtosecond transient absorption spectra also showed that such perovskite films are of very low concentration of exciton trap states. These results indicated that PLD is a powerful technology for growing high quality inorganic halide perovskite films with a tunable bandgap covering the full visible light range, which provided more options for CsPbX3 based panchromatic LED and other optoelectronic devices.

Skyrmions have attracted significant interest due to their topological spin structures and fascinating physical features. The skyrmion phase arises in materials with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya (DM) interaction at interfaces or in volume of non-centrosymmetric materials. However, although skyrmions were generated experimentally, one critical intrinsic relationship between fabrication, microstructures, magnetization and the existence of skyrmions remains to be established. Here, two series of CoFeB ultrathin films with controlled atomic scale structures are employed to reveal this relationship. By inverting the growth order, the amount of defects can be artificially tuned, and skyrmions are shown to be preferentially formed at defect sites. The stable region and the density of the skyrmions can be efficiently controlled in the return magnetization loops by utilizing first-order reversal curves to reach various metastable states. These findings establish the general and intrinsic relationship from sample preparation to skyrmion generation, offering an universal method to control skyrmion density., 25 pages, 5 figures

This Letter studies the reverse leakage and breakdown mechanisms of vertical GaN-on-Si Schottky barrier diodes (SBDs) with and without argon-implanted termination (ArIT). The electrical leakage characteristics in the vertical GaN-on-Si SBD without edge termination sequentially go through the thermionic field emission, variable range hopping (VRH), and trap-assisted tunneling conduction mechanisms as the reverse bias increases gradually. Its leakage and breakdown mechanisms are limited by the edge electric field crowding effect. While for the vertical GaN-on-Si SBD with ArIT (ArIT-SBD), the electrons conduction at a low reverse bias, following the space-charge-limited conduction (SCLC) model, is limited by the damage-induced traps in the implanted GaN. As the reverse bias increases up to the occurrence of breakdown, the VRH and SCLC dominate the leakage mechanism of the ArIT-SBD, which stem from intrinsic traps in GaN grown on Si. A rapidly growing leakage under a low reverse bias and enhanced breakdown voltage performance in the ArIT-SBD is attributed to the charging of the damage-induced traps in implanted GaN. This Letter not only gives in-depth insights of vertical GaN-on-Si SBDs but also provides a useful design guidance of implanted termination for high-voltage power devices.

A room-temperature method to determine the trap energy levels in the carbon-doped (Al)GaN buffers is developed via a transient current measurement on the AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors under back-gate voltages combined with a measurement of the buffer vertical leakage. Under high back-gate voltages, a linear relationship is obtained between the trap energy levels and the square roots of electric field strength, suggesting that the vertical conduction in the C-doped buffer follows the Poole–Frenkel law. The trap energy level in C-doped Al0.07Ga0.93N is finally determined to be 1.1 eV through the established room-temperature approach, while that in C-doped GaN is extracted to be 0.9 eV, both of which are related to the carbon impurities.

The restacking of stripped two-dimensional material into a van der Waals heterojunction provides a promising technology for high-performance optoelectronic devices. This paper presents a self-driven photodetector composed of p-GaSe/n-MoSe2. The hybrid contact is directly formed between the electrode and the heterojunction, which considerably improves the photovoltaic effect. In addition, the Schottky barrier between the semiconductor and metal electrodes creates a built-in electric field, which enhances the self-driven performance of the device. The as-fabricated photodetector has the high responsivity of 0.169 A W−1 at zero bias and the specific detectivity of 6.6 × 1011 Jones. When bias was applied, a responsivity of 6.81 A W−1 and a specific detectivity of 2.8 × 1013 Jones have also been obtained. This work demonstrates that selenide van der Waals heterojunctions based on two-dimensional materials have great potential for future electronic and optoelectronic applications.

The ability to vary the conductance of a valence-change memristor in a continuous manner makes it a prime choice as an artificial synapse in neuromorphic systems. Because synapses are the most numerous components in the brain, exceeding the neurons by several orders of magnitude, the scalability of artificial synapses is crucial to the development of large scale neuromorphic systems but is an issue which is seldom investigated. Leveraging on the conductive atomic force microscopy method, we found that the conductance switching of nanoscale memristors (∼25 nm2) is abrupt in a majority of the cases examined. This behavior is contrary to the analoglike conductance modulation or plasticity typically observed in larger area memristors. The result therefore implies that plasticity may be lost when the device dimension is scaled down. The contributing factor behind the plasticity behavior of a large-area memristor was investigated by current mapping, and may be ascribed to the disruption of the plurality of conductive filaments happening at different voltages, thus yielding an apparent continuous change in conductance with voltage. The loss of plasticity in scaled memristors may pose a serious constraint to the development of large scale neuromorphic systems. Published version

The narrow read-window of most complementary resistive switches proposed to-date poses a significant challenge to array level implementation, as inherent variations in the set and reset voltages result in an unacceptably small read margin. In this work, we present the asymmetrical ITO/HfOx/TiN complementary resistive switch, with a significantly enlarged positive read window of 1.6 V as compared to the much narrower window of 0.5 V of the symmetrical TiN/HfOx/TiN switch. A read margin of 1.1 V is obtained after accounting for statistical variations, representing a significant improvement over the 0.1 V margin of the symmetrical counterpart. Analyses show that the enlarged read window may be ascribed to two important attributes: (1) the stronger affinity of ITO for oxygen, which leads to a reduced positive set voltage and (2) a larger work function of the ITO, resulting in an increase in the positive reset voltage. MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore) Published version

In this paper, we numerically investigate the edge plasmons in monolayer black phosphorus. It is found that the complex effective indexes of these modes depend on the molecular configuration of the edge. We have calculated the ratio of the real over the imaginary part of the mode effective index, and the results indicate that such edge modes indeed possess outstanding propagation performances in the mid-infrared. In the case of black phosphorus nanoribbon, it seems that only the anti-symmetric modes have low losses, and may be of use in applications. Compared with those at the edge of monolayer black phosphorus, the propagation performances can be further enhanced due to the mode coupling between the two edges. In the end, the effects of substrates are discussed. Our study shows that monolayer black phosphorus may be regarded as a promising candidate for plasmonic applications in the mid-infrared.

By driving a 3D transmon with microwave fields, we generate an effective avoided energy-level crossing. Then we chirp microwave frequency, which is equivalent to driving the system through the avoided energy-level crossing by sweeping the avoided crossing. A double-passage chirp produces Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg-Majorana (LZSM) interference that agree well with the numerical results, especially with the initial state being an eigen-energy state in the center of an avoided level crossing. A time-resolved state tomography measurement is performed in the evolution of LZSM interference, showing an experimental evidence for the dynamical evolution of quantum state. Our method is fully applicable to other quantum systems that contain no intrinsic avoided level crossing, providing an alternative approach for quantum control and quantum simulation.

We report on van der Waals epitaxy of single-crystalline α-MoO3 sheets with single-unit-cell thickness on the mica substrate. The crystalline lattice structure, growth habits, and Raman spectra of the grown α-MoO3 sheets are analyzed. The anisotropic growth of α-MoO3 sheets can be understood by period bond chains theory. Unlike monolayer MoS2 or graphene, Raman spectra of α-MoO3 do not possess frequency shift from bulk crystal to single-unit-cell layer. The relative intensities of two Raman modes (Ag) at 159 and 818 cm−1 are sensitive to the polarization of incident light. This scenario provides a quick approach to determine the lattice orientation of α-MoO3 crystals. Our studies indicate that van der Waals epitaxial growth is a simple and effective way to fabricate high-quality ultrathin α-MoO3 sheets for physical property investigations and potential applications.

It is known that the cross-correlation function (CCF) of a partially coherent vortex (PCV) beam shows a robust link with the radial and azimuthal mode indices. However, the previous proposals are difficult to measure the CCF in practical systems, especially in the case of astronomical objects. In this letter, we demonstrate experimentally that the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect can be used to measure the mode indices of the original vortex beam and investigate the relationship between the spatial coherent width and the characterization of CCF of the PCV beam. The technique we exploit is quite efficient and robust, and it may be useful in the field of free space communication and astronomy which are related to the photon's orbital angular momentum.

A metal–ferroelectric–semiconductor (MFS) structure has been developed by depositing SrBi2Ta2O9 (SBT) films directly on n-type (100) Si by pulsed laser deposition. In the MFS structure, evidence for ferroelectric border traps in the SBT film has been obtained by high-frequency capacitance–voltage (C–V) measurement. When the ramp rate of voltage is higher than 200 mV/s, typical ferroelectric C–V hysteresis loops with the counterclockwise direction are obtained in C–V plots. When the ramp rate is lower than 80 mV/s, the ferroelectric hysteresis loops are replaced by the trap-induced ones with the clockwise direction. This pronounced change results from the fact that more and more border traps in SBT can communicate with the underlying Si. The border-trap density at the ramp rate of 10 mV/s is as high as 1.8×1012 cm−2. Moreover, the width of the hysteresis loops changes linearly with the logarithmic decrease in ramp rate, which is consistent with the ferroelectric border traps communicating with Si by tunnel...

In this work, we theoretically investigate the propagation of terahertz (THz) waves through a graphene-loaded metal grating under external magnetic field. It is found that resonant modes in the system can be converted between transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic polarizations due to Hall conductivity of graphene. As a consequence, asymmetric transmission of THz waves through this graphene-loaded metal grating is achieved. Furthermore, by adjusting either the external magnetic field or the Fermi level of graphene, such asymmetric wave propagation can be significantly tuned. The investigations may provide a unique way to achieve the graphene-loaded optodevices for THz waves.

We demonstrate that exciton emission wavelength in InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) can be shifted up to 160 nm using hydrostatic pressure (0.4–4 GPa) in situ in an optical cryostat through an improved diamond anvil cell driven by piezoelectric actuator. It is confirmed that the high pressure does not destroy the photon anti-bunching properties of single QD emitter. Exciton emission intensity is not obviously weakened under the pressure range of 0–4 GPa. Such a tunable QD single photon emitter enables a flexibly tuned source for quantum optical experiments.

In this work, we investigate electronic band structures and transport properties in dimerlike graphene superlattices (DGSLs), where the modulated potentials of square barrier A and well B on graphene are arranged as S(m) = (AB)m(BA)m. Here m is the repeated number of units. It is found that the mirror symmetry of the potential distribution on graphene can induce extra Dirac points (DPs), which originates from the dimerlike positional correlations in the system. The induced DPs, which are exactly located at the energy corresponding to zero averaged wave number, do not exist in the periodic graphene superlattices of (AB)m. The number and the position of DPs in the zero averaged wave number gap of DGSL can be manipulated. Correspondingly, multiple perfect transmissions are observed at the resonant modes. Moreover, the conductance for DGSL presents extra resonant peaks accompanying with the emergence of the induced DPs. The investigations may have potential applications in graphene-based electronic devices.

The miscibility of Ag with FePt composited films was investigated with anomalous x-ray scattering (AXS) and extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) at Ag K edge. In the AXS spectra for FePt Bragg peaks, the cusp near Ag K edge was observed, indicating alloying between Ag and FePt in the FePt–Ag thin films. Semiquantitative analysis showed 4.2 at. % and 5.9 at. % Ag were in FePt lattice for the samples with 20 vol % and 30 vol % Ag, respectively. EXAFS studies indicated in the alloyed FePt–Ag phase, Ag replaced the Fe sites in FePt lattice. Most of Ag segregated from FePt and formed fcc phase. This segregated Ag phase only had short range order, which may be due to that segregated Ag had small grain size and/or some disordered Ag phase existed in FePt grain boundaries.

The primary and secondary threshold intensities of ultraviolet-laser-induced preferential domain nucleation in nearly stoichiometric LiTaO3 is observed. The primary threshold is the minimum intensity to achieve the instantaneous preferential domain nucleation within the focus by the combined action of irradiation and electric fields. The secondary threshold is the minimum intensity to achieve the memory effect without any irradiation within the original focus. The space charge field created by the photoionization carriers is thought to be responsible for the instantaneous effect. The explanation based on the formation and transformation of extrinsic defect is presented for the memory effect.

The digital holographic interferometry is used in the dynamic and static measurements of phase variation induced by domain inversion. For the first time, to the authors’ knowledge, they observe the existence of ridge-shape phase distribution adjacent to 180° domain wall in congruent LiNbO3 crystal. During the domain wall motion, the phase variations are not uniform but have obvious relaxations. In the static measurement, the ridge elevation can vary linearly with the uniform electric field. The reasonable assumptions are proposed to explain these effects.