According to the well-established light-to-electricity conversion theory,resonant excited carriers in the quantum dots will relax to the ground states and cannot escape from the quantum dots to form photocurrent,which have been observed in quantum dots without a p–n junction at an external bias.Here,we experimentally observed more than 88% of the resonantly excited photo carriers escaping from In As quantum dots embedded in a short-circuited p–n junction to form photocurrent.The phenomenon cannot be explained by thermionic emission,tunneling process,and intermediate-band theories.A new mechanism is suggested that the photo carriers escape directly from the quantum dots to form photocurrent rather than relax to the ground state of quantum dots induced by a p–n junction.The finding is important for understanding the low-dimensional semiconductor physics and applications in solar cells and photodiode detectors.
A backside illuminated mesa-structure In Ga As/In P modified uni-traveling-carrier photodiode（MUTC-PD） with wide bandwidth and high saturation power is fabricated and investigated. The device structure is optimized to reduce the capacitance and resistance. For the 22-μm-diameter device, the maximum responsivity at 1.55 μm is 0.5 A/W, and the 3-d B cutoff frequency reaches up to 28 GHz. The output photocurrent at the 1-d B compression point is measured to be 54 m A at 25 GHz, with a corresponding output radio frequency（RF） power of up to 15.5 d Bm. The saturation characteristics of the MUTC-PD are also verified by the electric field simulation, and electric field collapse is found to be the cause of the saturation phenomenon.
We use a simple and controllable method to fabricate GaN-based light-emitting diodes （LEDs） with 22° undercut sidewalls by the successful implementation of the inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etching （ICP-RIE）. Our exper- iment results show that the output powers of the LEDs with 22° undercut sidewalls are 34.8 rnW under a 20-mA current injection, 6.75% higher than 32.6 mW, the output powers of the conventional LEDs under the same current injection.
Influences of the Si doping on the structural and optical properties of the InGaN epilayers are investigated in detail by means of high-resolution X-ray diffraction （HRXRD）, photolumimescence （PL）, scanning electron microscope （SEM）, and atomic force microscopy （AFM）. It is found that the Si doping may improve the surface morphology and crystal quality of the InGaN film and meanwhile it can also enhance the emission efficiency by increasing the electron concentration in the InGaN and suppressing tile formation of V-defects, which act as nonradiative recombination centers in the InGaN, and it is proposed that the former plays a more important role in enhancing the emission efficiency in the InGaN.
Absorption and carrier transport behavior plays an important role in the light-to-electricity conversion process, which is difficult to characterize. Here we develop a method to visualize such a conversion process in the InGaN/GaN multiquantum wells embedded in a p-n junction. Under non-resonant absorption conditions, a photocurrent was generated and the photoluminescence intensity decayed by more than 70% when the p-n junction out-circuit was switched from open to short. However, when the excitation photon energy decreased to the resonant absorption edge, the photocurrent dropped drastically and the photoluminescence under open and short circuit conditions showed similar intensity. These results indicate that the escaping of the photo-generated carriers from the quantum wells is closely related to the excitation photon energy.
InGaN quantum dot is a promising optoelectronic material, which combines the advantages of low-dimensional and wide-gap semiconductors. The growth of InGaN quantum dots is still not mature, especially the growth by metal--organic- vapor phase epitaxy （MOVPE）, which is challenge due to the lack of, itin-situ monitoring tool. In this paper, we reviewed the development of InGaN quantum dot growth by MOVPE, including our work on growth of near-UV, green, and red InGaN quantum dots. In addition, we also introduced the applications of InGaN quantum dots on visible light emitting diodes.
GaN and AlN nanowires（NWs） have attracted great interests for the fabrication of novel nano-sized devices. In this paper, the nucleation processes of GaN and AlN NWs grown on Si substrates by molecular beam epitaxy（MBE）are investigated. It is found that GaN NWs nucleated on in-situ formed Si3N4 fully release the stress upon the interface between GaN NW and amorphous Si3N4 layer, while AlN NWs nucleated by aluminization process gradually release the stress during growth. Depending on the strain status as well as the migration ability of Ⅲ group adatoms, the different growth kinetics of GaN and AlN NWs result in different NW morphologies, i.e., GaN NWs with uniform radii and AlN NWs with tapered bases.
We present a method to extend the operating wavelength of the interband transition quantum well photodetector from an extended short-wavelength infrared region to a middle-wavelength infrared region. In the modified In As Sb quantum well, Ga Sb is replaced with Al Sb/Al Ga Sb, the valence band of the barrier material is lowered, the first restricted energy level is higher than the valence band of the barrier material, the energy band structure forms type-II structure. The photocurrent spectrum manifest that the fabricated photodetector exhibits a response range from 1.9 μm to 3.2 μm with two peaks at 2.18 μm and 3.03 μm at 78 K.
