Browsing by Subject "Quantum electronics."

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Open Access
Correlation effects in coupled quantum-well and quantum-wire systems
(2001) Yurtsever, Ayhan
Open Access
Electric field dependent optoelectronic nature of InGaN/GaN quantum structures and devices
(2012) Sarı, Emre
In the past two decades we have been witnessing the emergence and rapid development of III-Nitride based optoelectronic devices including InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and laser diodes with operation wavelengths ranging from green-blue to near-UV. These InGaN/GaN devices are now being widely used in applications important for lighting, displays, and data storage, collectively exceeding a total market size of 10 billion USD. Although InGaN/GaN has been studied and exploited very extensively to date, its field dependent nature is mostly unknown and is surprisingly prone to quite unexpected behavior due to its intrinsic polarization property. In this thesis, we report our systematic study on the electric field dependent characteristics of InGaN/GaN quantum structures and devices including modulators and LEDs. Here we present our comparative study of electroabsorption in polar c-plane InGaN/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) with different built-in polarization induced electrostatic fields. Analyzing modulator structures with varying structural MQW parameters, we find that electroabsorption grows stronger with decreasing built-in electrostatic field strength inside the well layer, as predicted by our theoretical model and verified by our experimental results. To further explore the field dependent optoelectronic nature of c-plane grown InGaN/GaN quantum structures, we investigate radiative carrier dynamics, which is of critical importance for LEDs. Our time and spectrum resolved photoluminescence measurements and numerical analyses indicate that the carrier lifetimes, the radiative recombination lifetimes, and the quantum efficiencies all decrease with increasing field. We also study the physics of electroabsorption and carrier dynamics in InGaN/GaN quantum heterostructures grown intentionally on nonpolar a-plane of the wurtzite crystal structure, which are free of the polarization-induced electrostatic fields. We compare these results with the conventional c-plane grown polar structures. In the polar case, we observe blue-shifting absorption profile and decreasing carrier lifetimes with increasing electric field. In the nonpolar case, however, we observe completely the opposite: a red-shifting absorption profile and increasing carrier lifetimes. We explain these observations in the context of basic physical principles including Fermi‟s golden rule and quantum-confined Stark effect. Also, we present electroabsorption behavior of InGaN/GaN quantum structures grown using epitaxial lateral overgrowth (ELOG) in correlation with their dislocation density levels and in comparison to steady state and time-resolved photoluminescence measurements. The results reveal that ELOG structures with decreasing mask stripe widths exhibit stronger electroabsorption performance. While keeping the ELOG window widths constant, compared to photoluminescence behavior, however, electroabsorption surprisingly exhibits the largest performance variation, making the electroabsorption the most sensitive to the mask stripe widths. This thesis work provides significant insight and important information for the optoelectronics of InGaN/GaN quantum structures and devices to better understand their field dependent nature.
Open Access
Ground-state properties of double-wire semiconducting systems
(1997) Mutluay Müstecaplıoğlu, Nihal
With the recent advances in nanometer-scale semiconductor device fabrication technology, it became experimentally possible to produce strongly confined electron systems. Quantum wires are among these systems, and are attracting increasing interest due to their potential applications in solid-state device technology such as high-speed transistors, efficient photodetectors and lasers. Quantum wires are quasi-one-dimensional systems where electrons are free to move in one dimension, but their motion is restricted in the remaining two dimensions. Various models for qucisi-one-dimensional structures have been proposed in the literature, such as cylindrical, square-well and parabolic confinements. in this thesis, we examine ground-state correlations in double-quantum-wire systems within the self-consistent scheme of Singwi et ai, namely the STLS approximation. The model we adopt consists of two parallel cylindrically-confined quantum wires. The cases when both wires have electrons as charge carriers and when one wire has electrons while the other has holes are considered. Under the assumption that only one subband is occupied in each quantum wire and there is no tunneling between them, we calculate the local-field factors and static correlation functions. Ground-state energy and collective modes are discussed within the RPA, Hubbard and STLS approximations in order to compare the results. Charge-density-wave instabilities in these structures are examined at small and finite q values. Our numerical results are given for systems where the carrier densities and the radii of both wires are equal. As the charge carrier density is lowered, we observe that the importance of local field corrections increases so that the RPA or Hubbard approximations do not give reliable results in this region. We find that the interwire correlations become quite important for electron-hole systems. Taking into account the exchange-correlation hole around electrons, STLS provides a much better description to this many-body problem compared to the previous models.
Open Access
Localized plasmon-coupled semiconductor nanocrystal emitters for innovative device applications
(2007) Soğancı, İbrahim Murat
Quantum confinement allows for the development of novel luminescent materials such as colloidal semiconductor quantum dots for a variety of photonic applications spanning from biomedical labeling to white light generation. However, such device applications require efficient photoluminescence. To this end, in this thesis we investigate the spontaneous emission characteristics of semiconductor nanocrystal emitters under different conditions and their enhancement and controlled modification via plasmonic resonance coupling, placing metallic nanoparticles in their proximity, for innovative device applications. We first present our theoretical and experimental work on the optical characterization of nanocyrstals (e.g., CdSe, CdS, and CdSe/ZnS) including absorption/photoluminescence, time-resolved luminescence, and excitation spectra measurements. Here we demonstrate very strong electromodulation (up to 90%) of photoluminescence and absorption of such nanocrystals (nanodots and nanorods) for optical modulator applications. Second, we present our electromagnetic modeling on the optical response of metal nanoparticles using finite-difference-time-domain method. For the first time, using localized plasmons of metal nanoisland films (nano-silver) carefully spectrally and spatially tuned for optimal coupling conditions, we report very significant controlled modifications of nanocrystal emission including the peak emission wavelength shift (by 14nm), emission linewidth reduction (by 10nm with 22% FWHM reduction), photoluminescence intensity enhancement (15.1- and 21.6-fold compared to the control groups of the same nanocrystals with no plasmonic coupling and those with identical nano-silver but no dielectric spacer in the case of non-radiative energy transfer, respectively), and selectable peaking of surface-state emission at desired wavelengths. Such localized plasmonic engineering of nanocrystal emitters opens new possibilities for our lightemitting and photovoltaic devices.
Open Access
Rabi oscillations in an exciton-polariton system
(1995) Müstecaplıoğlu, Özgür Esat
The pure qiiaiitum model d(\scril)ing lîahi oscillations of exciton-polaritons in a ınicro-cavity is consid(‘r(‘(l. IMiolon-c'Xcilon intiT’action Hamiltonian is diagonalized with the aid of Bogoliihov canonical transformations and polariton picture is obtained. We (ind that this picture is ecpiicalent to the two level atomsingle mode held interaction up to the lact that bosonic nature^ of this picture allows many i)articles in both level whose decays give radiation. We demonstrate tluit in contrast to tlie Jaynes-Cummings moded collapse and revivals cannot be seen in our model. Pumping mecluinism and its elfects on the preparation of the initial states are examined. It is found that initial statcîs of such system should form two-modi' coher('nt state'. Markovian da.iiiping is introduc('d in 1 h'isi'iibergLangevin formalism. It is shown that i 1h‘ (oscillations can Ix' obs('rv('d if cavity dtiinping rate does not excc'ed some critical value depending on coupling constant cind detuning (of cavity modex iLxplicit cxxjoii'ssion for la'iiormalized HaJoi frecpiency is found. Strong, weak and critical damioing r('giim‘s are studi('d in detciil.
Open Access
Ridge waveguide GaAS
(1994) Türkoğlu, Abdullah Kamuran
The study of solid-state laser structures in low dimensions has gained great deal of attention in recent years. The theory originated in early 1960s developed really fast along with new fabrication methods bringing geometries from macroscopic to sub-micron scale. This, in turn, made it possible to realize more complex semiconductor laser structures having multiple quantum wells in their active region with sub-milliampere threshold currents and tens of mW att/facet optical light outputs. Today, after a long way of effort in the interest for MQW laser structures, quite challenging performances have been achieved.* However, due to complexity encountered during manufacturing and testing processes of these new lasing structures, it seems that overall technique still needs to be improved. In this research conducted at BU Advanced Research Laboratories, design, fabrication and characterization of CaAs/ALGaı-^As Multiple Quantum Well Icisers is aimed. In the subsequent chapters, first the basic theoretical background for QW lasers is summarized, then the method followed during fabrication is reported, and finaly, typical characteristics obtained after test studies are presented.
Open Access
Selective plasmonic control of excitons and their non-radiative energy transfer in colloidal semiconductor quantum dot solids
(2009) Özel, Tuncay
To date extensive research has proved that semiconductors and metals exhibit extraordinary optical properties in nano-dimensions compared to their bulk counterparts. For example, an interesting effect is observed in metal nanostructures/nanoparticles (NPs) that we form to obtain localized plasmons, with their optical response highly tuneable using the size effect. Another field of interest at the nanoscale is the investigation of light generation and harvesting using colloidal semiconductor quantum dot nanocrystals (NCs) that we synthesize in few nanometers, with their emission and absorption excitonic peaks conveniently tuneable using the size effect. In this thesis, we proposed and demonstrated the first accounts of selectively plasmonically-controlled colloidal quantum dot emitters assembled in innovative architectures, with a control achieved either through spatial selection or spectral selection. In the first set of designs, we developed for the first time plasmonic NC-composites that rely on spatially-selected plasmon-coupled CdTe NC-monolayers interspaced with respect to Au NP-monolayers in a repeating three-dimensional layer-by-layer architecture. In these bottom-up designs of hybrid nanocomposites, the photoluminescence kinetics is strongly modified and a record quantum efficiency of 30% is achieved for such CdTe NC solids. In the second set of designs, we showed the first spectrally-selected plasmon-coupling of surfaceemitting CdS NCs using optimized Ag NP deposits. This architecture allowed for the surface-state emission to be selectively enhanced while the interband emission is simultaneously suppressed in the same plasmon-coupled NCs, leading to the strongest surface-state emission from such CdS NCs reported with respect to their interband emission (with a >12-fold enhancement). Yet another important proximity phenomenon effective among quantum dot emitters is the Förster-type non-radiative resonance energy transfer (ET), in which excitonic excitation energy of the donor-NCs is non-radiatively transferred to the acceptor-NCs via dipole-dipole coupling. In the third set of our designs, we combined two fundamental proximity mechanisms of plasmon coupling and non-radiative energy transfer in the same NC solids. In plasmonic ET, we reported for the first time selectively plasmon-coupling of NC-acceptors and then that of NC-donors in the ET pair, both of which result in substantial enhancement of the acceptor emission with respect to ET with no plasmon coupling (with a maximum of 2-fold enhancement) as verified by their steadystate and time-resolved photoluminescence. This concept of spectrally/spatiallyselective plasmon coupling in quantum dots paves a new path for devices and sensors in nanophotonics.