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In this work we study the nature of the band gap in GeSn alloys for use in silicon-based lasers. Special attention is paid to Sn-induced band mixing effects. We demonstrate from both experiment and ab-initio theory that the (direct) Γ-character of the GeSn band gap changes continuously with alloy composition and has significant Γ-character even at low (6%) Sn concentrations. The evolution of the Γ-character is due to Sn-induced conduction band mixing effects, in contrast to the sharp indirect-to-direct band gap transition obtained in conventional alloys such as Al1−xGaxAs. Understanding the band mixing effects is critical not only from a fundamental and basic properties viewpoint but also for designing photonic devices with enhanced capabilities utilizing GeSn and related material systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Associative memory in the Mushroom Body of the fruit fly brain depends on the encoding and processing of odorants in the first three stages of the Early Olfactory System: the Antenna, the Antennal Lobe and the Mushroom Body Calyx. The Kenyon Cells (KCs) of the Calyx provide the Mushroom Body compartments the identity of pure and odorant mixtures encoded as a train of spikes. Characterizing the code underlying the KC spike trains is a major challenge in neuroscience. To address this challenge we start by explicitly modeling the space of odorants using constructs of both semantic and syntactic information. Odorant semantics concerns the identity of odorants while odorant syntactics pertains to their concentration amplitude. These odorant attributes are multiplicatively coupled in the process of olfactory transduction. A key question that early olfactory systems must address is how to disentangle the odorant semantic information from the odorant syntactic information. To address the untanglement we devised an Odorant Encoding Machine (OEM) modeling the first three stages of early olfactory processing in the fruit fly brain. Each processing stage is modeled by Divisive Normalization Processors (DNPs). DNPs are spatio-temporal models of canonical computation of brain circuits. The end-to-end OEM is constructed as cascaded DNPs. By extensively modeling and characterizing the processing of pure and odorant mixtures in the Calyx, we seek to answer the question of its functional significance. We demonstrate that the DNP circuits in the OEM combinedly reduce the variability of the Calyx response to odorant concentration, thereby separating odorant semantic information from syntactic information. We then advance a code, called first spike sequence code, that the KCs make available at the output of the Calyx. We show that the semantics of odorants can be represented by this code in the spike domain and is ready for easy memory access in the Mushroom Body compartments., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Lazar, Liu, Yeh and Zhou.)

The study of all-group-IV SiGeSn lasers has opened a new avenue to Si-based light sources. SiGeSn heterostructure and quantum well lasers have been successfully demonstrated in the past few years. It has been reported that, for multiple quantum well lasers, the optical confinement factor plays an important role in the net modal gain. In previous studies, adding a cap layer was proposed to increase the optical mode overlap with the active region and thereby improve the optical confinement factor of Fabry-Perot cavity lasers. In this work, SiGeSn/GeSn multiple quantum well (4-well) devices with various cap layer thicknesses, i.e., 0 (no cap), 190, 250, and 290 nm, are grown using a chemical vapor deposition reactor and characterized via optical pumping. While no-cap and thinner-cap devices only show spontaneous emission, the two thicker-cap devices exhibit lasing up to 77 K, with an emission peak at 2440 nm and a threshold of 214 kW/cm 2 (250 nm cap device). The clear trend in device performance disclosed in this work provides guidance in device design for electrically injected SiGeSn quantum well lasers.