Chia-Hung Hsu

Nanometer-Thick Single-Crystal Hexagonal Gd2 O3 on GaN for Advanced Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Technology.

Hexagonal-phase single-crystal Gd2 O3 is deposited on GaN in a molecular beam epitaxy system. The dielectric constant is about twice that of its cubic counterpart when deposited on InGaAs or Si. The capacitive effective thickness of 0.5 nm in hexagonal Gd2 O3 is perhaps the lowest on GaN-metal-oxide-semiconductor devices. The heterostructure is thermo dynamically stable at high temperatures and exhibits low interfacial densities of states after high-temperature annealing.

Cost-Effective Direct-Detection All-Optical OOK-OFDM System With Analysis of Modulator Bandwidth and Driving Power

Optical orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) with advanced modulation format [e.g., quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK)] provides many transmission advantages. As the OFDM data rate is limited by the electronic digital-to-analog (DAC) and analog-to-digital (ADC) integrated circuits, an all-optical technique (i.e., all-optical OFDM) is used to construct an OFDM symbol; hence, it can provide a significant improvement in transmission capacity. In this work, we propose and demonstrate a cost-effective 275-Gb/s direct-detection all-optical OFDM system for access or data center networks. As all wavelength channels (11 wavelengths in the experiment) are produced by one laser source, only the temperature control of one master laser is enough. In addition, each wavelength channel in the all-optical OFDM signal is encoded using on-off keying (OOK) modulation format; the traditional generation and detection circuits used in the transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) of the present passive optical network can still be used. We also numerically analyze the requirements of the opt-comb-MOD (modulator used to generate the optical comb source) and the data-MOD (modulator used to generate the OOK data) in the system.

Direct backward third-harmonic generation in nanostructures

We theoretically and experimentally demonstrated that direct backward third harmonic generation (THG) waves can be comparable in magnitude with forward THG waves in nanostructures, such as ZnO thin films and nanoparticles of CdSe and Fe3O4.

Wired and wireless convergent extended-reach optical access network using direct-detection of all-optical OFDM super-channel signal

We propose and demonstrate the feasibility of using all-optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (AO-OFDM) for the convergent optical wired and wireless access networks. AO-OFDM relies on all-optically generated orthogonal subcarriers; hence, high data rate (> 100 Gb/s) can be easily achieved without hitting the speed limit of electronic digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters (DAC/ADC). A proof-of-concept convergent access network using AO-OFDM super-channel (SC) is demonstrated supporting 40 - 100 Gb/s wired and gigabit/s 100 GHz millimeter-wave (MMW) ROF transmissions.

Phase Transformation of Molecular Beam Epitaxy-Grown Nanometer-Thick Gd2O3 and Y2O3 on GaN

High quality nanometer-thick Gd₂O₃ and Y₂O₃ (rare-earth oxide, R₂O₃) films have been epitaxially grown on GaN (0001) substrate by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The R₂O₃ epi-layers exhibit remarkable thermal stability at 1100 °C, uniformity, and highly structural perfection. Structural investigation was carried out by in situ reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) and ex-situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) with synchrotron radiation. In the initial stage of epitaxial growth, the R₂O₃ layers have a hexagonal phase with the epitaxial relationship of R₂O₃ (0001)(H)<1120>(H)//GaN(0001)(H)<1120>(H). With the increase in R₂O₃ film thickness, the structure of the R₂O₃ films changes from single domain hexagonal phase to monoclinic phase with six different rotational domains, following the R₂O₃ (201)(M)[020](M)//GaN(0001)(H)<1120>(H) orientational relationship. The structural details and fingerprints of hexagonal and monoclinic phase Gd₂O₃ films have also been examined by using electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS). Approximate 3-4 nm is the critical thickness for the structural phase transition depending on the composing rare earth element.

Single crystal Gd2O3 epitaxially on GaAs(111)A

Gd2O3 films 2 and 6 nm thick, electron-beam evaporated from a compact powder target, were deposited on freshly molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown epi-GaAs(111)A in a multi-chamber MBE system. The oxide films are epitaxial with the underlying GaAs, as studied by in situ reflective high energy electron diffraction and high-resolution X-ray diffraction using synchrotron radiation. The films undergo a structure phase transformation from hexagonal to monoclinic when the film thickness increases from 2 to 6 nm; the 2 nm oxide has H-Gd2O3(0001)[100]‖GaAs(111)[4] orientation relationship and the 6 nm film follows M-Gd2O3(01)[102]‖GaAs(111) with 3 rotational variants anchored by the 3-fold symmetric substrate. Here, H and M denote the hexagonal and monoclinic phases, respectively.

Correlation between oxygen vacancies and magnetism in Mn-doped Y2O3 nanocrystals investigated by defect engineering techniques

Defect engineering techniques have been employed to generate and remove oxygen vacancy defects in nanoparticles of Y2O3:Mn diluted magnetic oxide (DMO). These samples were prepared by thermal decomposition method followed by a series of thermal annealing in oxygen and forming gas. The x-ray absorption analysis reveals that O vacancies surrounding Mn and Y atoms were appreciably increased by forming-gas-annealing and decreased by oxygen-annealing, accompanied by enhanced and reduced saturation magnetization as demonstrated by magnetic measurements, respectively. Our results demonstrate strong correlation between magnetism and O vacancies and therefore strongly support the bound magnetic polaron model for these high-k DMOs.

The dominant effect of non-centrosymmetric displacement on the crystal-field energy splitting in the strained a-plane ZnO epi-films on r-plane sapphires

The polarization-dependent photoluminescence (PL) of the a-plane ZnO (a-ZnO) films grown on r-plane sapphire substrates shows that the crystal-field energy splitting (ΔCF) becomes larger with increasing film thickness from 24 nm to 291 nm. In the use of the nonlinear fitting of the stress–strain tensor to the X-ray diffraction data, we found crystal symmetry breaking from wurtzite to monoclinic in these films and determined the corresponding lattice constants and the relaxed lattice constants. With the available lattice variables, we further used the tight-binding method to calculate the band energies and compared with the PL spectra. The results confirm that the crystal deformation and the non-centrosymmetric displacement had opposite effects on the ΔCF at the Γ point and the displacement induced by the strain is the dominant effect on ΔCF.

Coherent acoustic phonon oscillation accompanied with backward acoustic pulse below exciton resonance in a ZnO epifilm on oxide-buffered Si(1 1 1)

Unlike coherent acoustic phonons (CAPs) generated from heat induced thermal stress by the coated Au film, we demonstrated the oscillation from c-ZnO epitaxial film on oxide buffered Si through a degenerate pump–probe technique. As the excited photon energy was set below the exciton resonance, the electronic stress that resulted from defect resonance was used to induce acoustic wave. The damped oscillation revealed a superposition of a high frequency and long decay CAP signal with a backward propagating acoustic pulse which was generated by the absorption of the penetrated pump beam at the Si surface and selected by the ZnO layer as the acoustic resonator.

The effect of thermal annealing on the optical and electrical properties of ZnO epitaxial films grown on n-GaAs (001)

Wurtzite ZnO epitaxial layers grown on n-type GaAs (001) by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) exhibited n-type conductivity. Post-growth annealing leads the conversion of carrier type from electron to hole, as revealed by Hall effect measurements, although only moderate structural improvement was observed. The carrier type conversion is attributed to thermally activated arsenic diffusion from the substrate, confirmed by secondary ion mass spectrometry and photoluminescence. The surface electrical properties of both the as-deposited n-type and annealed p-type ZnO epitaxial layers were thoroughly characterized by Kelvin force microscopy (KFM) and electrostatic force microscopy (EFM). The results indicated the existence of a high density of surface states close to the ZnO midgap with a density of a few 1014 cm−2 eV−1. The Fermi levels (EF) of n- and p-type ZnO epitaxial layers were found to be 1.06 eV below the conduction-band minimum (CBM) and 1.612–1.769 eV above the valence-band maximum (VBM), respectively. The small EF difference between the n- and p-type ZnO epitaxial layers implies Fermi level pinning at the surface of both n- and p-type ZnO epitaxial layers.