Benjamin P. L. Reid

Non-polar (11-20) InGaN quantum dots with short exciton lifetimes grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy

We report on the optical characterization of non-polar a-plane InGaN quantum dots (QDs) grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy using a short nitrogen anneal treatment at the growth temperature. Spatial and spectral mapping of sub-surface QDs has been achieved by cathodoluminescence at 8 K. Microphotoluminescence studies of the QDs reveal resolution limited sharp peaks with typical linewidth of 1 meV at 4.2 K. Time-resolved photoluminescence studies suggest the excitons in these QDs have a typical lifetime of 538 ps, much shorter than that of the c-plane QDs, which is strong evidence of the significant suppression of the internal electric fields.

Optical studies of the surface effects from the luminescence of single GaN/InGaN nanorod light emitting diodes fabricated on a wafer scale

Time-resolved and time-integrated microphotoluminescence studies at 4.2 K were performed on a single InGaN/GaN nanorod light emitting diode, fabricated in an array, on a wafer scale by nanoimprint lithography. Emission properties and carrier dynamics of the single nanorods are presented. Sharp peaks of 2 meV line-width were observed. The single nanorods possess longer decay rates than an unprocessed wafer at delay-times above 50 ns after excitation. The time evolution of the photoluminescence spectra implies that the slower decay times are due to surface related localisation near the perimeter of the nanorods, resulting in a spatial separation of the recombining carriers at low excitation densities.

Observations of Rabi oscillations in a non-polar InGaN quantum dot

Experimental observation of Rabi rotations between an exciton excited state and the crystal ground state in a single non-polar InGaN quantum dot is presented. The exciton excited state energy is determined by photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy using two-photon excitation from a pulsed laser. The population of the exciton excited state is seen to undergo power dependent damped Rabi oscillations.

Strong Exciton-Photon Coupling with Colloidal Nanoplatelets in an Open Microcavity.

Colloidal semiconductor nanoplatelets exhibit quantum size effects due to their thickness of only a few monolayers, together with strong optical band-edge transitions facilitated by large lateral extensions. In this article, we demonstrate room temperature strong coupling of the light and heavy hole exciton transitions of CdSe nanoplatelets with the photonic modes of an open planar microcavity. Vacuum Rabi splittings of 66 ± 1 meV and 58 ± 1 meV are observed for the heavy and light hole excitons, respectively, together with a polariton-mediated hybridization of both transitions. By measuring the concentration of platelets in the film, we compute the transition dipole moment of a nanoplatelet exciton to be μ = (575 ± 110) D. The large oscillator strength and fluorescence quantum yield of semiconductor nanoplatelets provide a perspective toward novel photonic devices by combining polaritonic and spinoptronic effects.

Surface-Effect-Induced Optical Bandgap Shrinkage in GaN Nanotubes.

We investigate nontrivial surface effects on the optical properties of self-assembled crystalline GaN nanotubes grown on Si substrates. The excitonic emission is observed to redshift by ∼100 meV with respect to that of bulk GaN. We find that the conduction band edge is mainly dominated by surface atoms, and that a larger number of surface atoms for the tube is likely to increase the bandwidth, thus reducing the optical bandgap. The experimental findings can have important impacts in the understanding of the role of surfaces in nanostructured semiconductors with an enhanced surface/volume ratio.

Origins of Spectral Diffusion in the Micro-Photoluminescence of Single InGaN Quantum Dots

We report on optical characterization of self-assembled InGaN quantum dots (QDs) grown on three GaN pseudo-substrates with differing threading dislocation densities. QD density is estimated via microphotoluminscence on a masked sample patterned with circular apertures, and appears to increase with dislocation density. A non-linear excitation technique is used to observe the sharp spectral lines characteristic of QD emission. Temporal variations of the wavelength of emission from single QDs are observed and attributed to spectral diffusion. The magnitude of these temporal variations is seen to increase with dislocation density, suggesting locally fluctuating electric fields due to charges captured by dislocations are responsible for the spectral diffusion in this system.

Confocal microphotoluminescence mapping of coupled and detuned states in photonic molecules

We study the coupling of cavities defined by the local modulation of the waveguide width using confocal photoluminescence microscopy. We are able to spatially map the profile of the antisymmetric (antibonding) and symmetric (bonding) modes of a pair of strongly coupled cavities (photonic molecule) and follow the coupled cavity system from the strong coupling to the weak coupling regime in the presence of structural disorder. The effect of disorder on this photonic molecule is also investigated numerically with a finite-difference time-domain method and a semi-analytical approach, which enables us to quantify the light localization observed in either cavity as a function of detuning.

Non-polar InGaN quantum dot emission with crystal-axis oriented linear polarization

Polarization sensitive photoluminescence is performed on single non-polar InGaN quantum dots. The studied InGaN quantum dots are found to have linearly polarized emission with a common polarization direction defined by the [0001] crystal axis. Around half of ∼40 studied dots have a polarization degree of 1. For those lines with a polarization degree less than 1, we can resolve fine structure splittings between −800 μeV and +800 μeV, with no clear correlation between fine structure splitting and emission energy.

Optical studies on a single GaN nanocolumn containing a single InxGa1―xN quantum disk

Microphotoluminescence studies were carried out on a single GaN nanocolumn containing a single InGaN quantum disk (QDisk) that had been removed from its growth substrate and dispersed onto a patterned grid. An analysis of the dynamics of the carriers in the nanocolumn is presented. Suppression of the GaN luminescence from the area of the column in the vicinity of the InGaN QDisk in addition to a delayed emission from the QDisk relative to the GaN is observed. Time resolved spatial maps of the luminescence intensity from the column are also presented, illustrating the evolution of the carrier density in the system.

Reduced Stark shift in three-dimensionally confined GaN/AlGaN asymmetric multiquantum disks

The optical transitions of the three-dimensionally confined GaN/AlGaN asymmetric multi quantum disks were characterized by micro photoluminescence and time-resolved photoluminescence. Several fine emission lines, originating from the wide and narrow quantum disks, were observed around 3.7 eV from a single nanocolumn dispersed on a patterned SiO2 substrate. The photoluminescence from the wide quantum disk shifts a little with increasing excitation power, while that from the narrow quantum disk does not shift. This effect can be explained by carrier tunneling for the 3-dimensionally confined quantum disks. Kelvin probe force microscopy results confirm that the GaN/AlGaN multiquantum disks are surrounded by a GaN shell, which has a higher potential than core GaN.