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The surface morphology of GaN epitaxial films grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy has been investigated. We found that the surface morphology was sensitive to the N to Ga flux ratio (N/Ga) when grown at a high temperature (i.e., 788 °C). At that temperature, we did not observe large sized Ga droplets on the surface even at Ga-rich conditions. Furthermore, we found a transition from two-dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D) growth in the intermediate Ga-stable regime. The slope of the growth rate was different: Slope=(0.39±0.06) was observed in the 2D-growth mode and (0.14±0.03) in the 3D-growth mode. In the high N/Ga ratio, the total dislocation concentration was reduced, and the mixed threading dislocation concentration had a minimum value at N/Ga=22.5. By comparing with the Hall carrier concentration results, we found that the mixed threading dislocations influence the number of electronic carriers.

The robustness of Sb2SeTe2 topological insulators against surface oxidation has been comparatively investigated through their magneto-transport and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic properties with samples freshly cleaved or exposed to air over various timeframes. The magnetoresistance data exhibit Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations with the same period of oscillations for all samples regardless of surface oxidation, whereas the core-level electron binding energies of the constituent elements vary. That there is no shift in Fermi levels and no smearing-out in the amplitude of oscillations suggests that the surface states of the studied topological insulators are impervious to surface oxidation.

We demonstrate the potential of sub-bandgap laser-excited cross-sectional scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy to investigate the presence of defect states in semiconductors. The characterization method is illustrated on GaN layers grown on Si(111) substrates without intentional buffer layers. According to high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and cathodoluminescence spectroscopy, the GaN layers consist of nanoscale wurtzite and zincblende crystallites with varying crystal orientations and hence contain high defect state densities. In order to discriminate between band-to-band excitation and defect state excitations, we use sub-bandgap laser excitation. We probe a clear increase in the tunnel current at positive sample voltages during sub-bandgap laser illumination for the GaN layer with high defect density, but no effect is found for high quality GaN epitaxial layers. This demonstrates the excitation of free charge carriers at defect states. Thus, sub-bandgap laser-excited scanning tunneling spectroscopy is a powerful complimentary characterization tool for defect states.INTRODUCTION

We propose and demonstrate a novel approach to the coating of semiconductor laser facets. In this approach, processed semiconductor lasers are cleaved in a high‐vacuum system immediately followed by coating of the vacuum‐exposed facet with a very thin Si layer (≤100 A) and a large band gap dielectric (Al2O3) layer. The Si layer is sufficiently thin to avoid the formation of quantized bound states in the Si. GaAs coated with thin Si and Al2O3 have a higher luminescence yield and a lower surface recombination velocity than bare GaAs surfaces as well as GaAs surfaces coated with Al2O3 only. A surface recombination velocity of 3×104 cm/s has been obtained using a modified dead layer model for the Si/Al2O3 sample. It is also shown that lasers which are cleaved in vacuum and subsequently coated with Si and Al2O3 have improved properties including an increased threshold for catastrophic optical damage.

Temperature and excitation power dependent time-integrated photoluminescence of Si doped InN thin films are investigated. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra at low temperatures are described by single emission peak ensued due to “free-to-bound” recombination; whereas PL spectra at higher temperatures above 150 K are characterized by both “band-to-band” and “free-to-bound” transition. Carrier dynamics of Si doped InN thin films is studied using pump-probe reflection spectroscopy at room temperature. The hot electron cooling process is well described by electron-electron scattering. The dependence of the hot electron cooling rate on total electron density shows sublinear to linear behavior with increase of background electron density. The variation of the carrier recombination lifetime with total electron density implicates the dominance of the defect-related nonradiative recombination channel over other recombination processes.

Time-integrated and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) of InN thin films of different background carrier concentrations are investigated. The PL formation mechanism is attributed to the “free-to-bound” transition by analyzing the time-integrated PL spectra at different pump fluences. The dependence of the PL decay time with emission energy is investigated using a theoretical model which speculates upon the carrier localization in InN thin films. The radiative lifetime, mobility edge, and carrier localization energy are obtained from the dependence of the PL decay time on emission energy and are studied at different background carrier concentrations. The effect of intervalley scattering between the Γ1 and Γ3 valley on the radiative lifetime, mobility edge, and carrier localization energy is discussed. The longer radiative lifetime and smaller values of the mobility edge and localization energy for 3.06 eV excitation are observed than that for the 1.53 eV excitation due to the intervalley scattering process.

The growth of Indium nitride (InN) was studied in the nucleation stage by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique using atomic nitrogen from an RF microwave plasma source. Deposition was carried out through a range of substrate temperatures from 375 to 550 °C and at varying V/III ratios from 950 to 3150. We found that the diffusion lifetime of In atoms on the substrate becomes maximized at the growth temperature 475 °C, in which low temperature photoluminescence exhibits the excellent optical properties of the materials with a bandgap of 0.69 eV and a width of 34 meV. In addition, we observed that nitrogen cracking efficiency is significantly improved by using plasma so that high quality InN crystallites were grown with a very low V/III ratio around 950.

In this study, we conducted numerical simulations with the consideration of microelectronic and photonic structures to determine the feasibility of and to design the device structure for the optimized performance of InGaN p-i-n single homojunction solar cells. Operation mechanisms of InGaN p-i-n single homojunction solar cells were explored through the calculation of the characteristic parameters such as the absorption, collection efficiency (χ), open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current density (Jsc), and fill factor (FF). Simulation results show that the characteristic parameters of InGaN solar cells strongly depend on the indium content, thickness, and defect density of the i-layer. As the indium content in the cell increases, Jsc and absorption increase while χ, Voc, and FF decrease. The combined effects of the absorption, χ, Voc, Jsc, and FF lead to a higher conversion efficiency in the high-indium-content solar cell. A high-quality In0.75Ga0.25N solar cell with a 4 μm i-layer thickness can e...

Heteroepitaxial growth of m-plane (1010) InN film on (100)-γ-LiAlO2 (LAO) substrate has been realized by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy. Surface treatment of LAO substrate plays an important role in controlling the resultant phase and purity of m-plane InN. X-ray diffraction, reflection high-energy electron diffraction, electron back scatter diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) studies revealed formation of pure m-plane InN film using substrate preannealed at 800 °C but without any nitridation. In contrast, using substrate with nitridation but otherwise identical pretreatment and growth conditions, c-plane (0001) InN columnar structure was grown, instead of m-plane InN film. Structural anisotropy of the m-plane InN epitaxied on LAO is attributed to the I1 type base-plane stacking faults according to the modified Williamson–Hall and TEM analyses. A rectangular-to-rectangular atomic stacking sequence and a commensurately lattice-matched condition in epitaxial direction of [1210]...