Houzhi Zheng

Strong enhancement of photoresponsivity with shrinking the electrodes spacing in few layer GaSe photodetectors

A critical challenge for the integration of optoelectronics is that photodetectors have relatively poor sensitivities at the nanometer scale. Generally, a large electrodes spacing in photodetectors is required to absorb sufficient light to maintain high photoresponsivity and reduce the dark current. However, this will limit the optoelectronic integration density. Through spatially resolved photocurrent investigation, we find that the photocurrent in metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors based on layered GaSe is mainly generated from the region close to the metal-GaSe interface with higher electrical potential. The photoresponsivity monotonically increases with shrinking the spacing distance before the direct tunneling happens, which was significantly enhanced up to 5,000 AW−1 for the bottom Ti/Au contacted device. It is more than 1,700-fold improvement over the previously reported results. The response time of the Ti/Au contacted devices is about 10–20u2005ms and reduced down to 270u2005μs for the devices with single layer graphene as metallic electrodes. A theoretical model has been developed to well explain the photoresponsivity for these two types of device configurations. Our findings realize reducing the size and improving the performance of 2D semiconductor based MSM photodetectors simultaneously, which could pave the way for future high density integration of optoelectronics with high performances.

Electric field control of deterministic current-induced magnetization switching in a hybrid ferromagnetic/ferroelectric structure

All-electrical and programmable manipulations of ferromagnetic bits are highly pursued for the aim of high integration and low energy consumption in modern information technology. Methods based on the spin-orbit torque switching in heavy metal/ferromagnet structures have been proposed with magnetic field, and are heading toward deterministic switching without external magnetic field. Here we demonstrate that an in-plane effective magnetic field can be induced by an electric field without breaking the symmetry of the structure of the thin film, and realize the deterministic magnetization switching in a hybrid ferromagnetic/ferroelectric structure with Pt/Co/Ni/Co/Pt layers on PMN-PT substrate. The effective magnetic field can be reversed by changing the direction of the applied electric field on the PMN-PT substrate, which fully replaces the controllability function of the external magnetic field. The electric field is found to generate an additional spin-orbit torque on the CoNiCo magnets, which is confirmed by macrospin calculations and micromagnetic simulations.

Resonant cavity based compact efficient antireflection structures for photonic crystals

We propose an effective admittance (EA) method to design antireflection structures for two-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs). We demonstrate that a compact and efficient antireflection structure, which is difficult to obtain by the conventional admittance matching method, can be readily designed by the EA method. The antireflection structure consists of an air slot resonant cavity that is constructed only with the materials that constitute the PC. Compared with a bare PC, the reflection from a PC with an antireflection structure is reduced by two orders of magnitude over a wide bandwidth. To confirm the presented EA method, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations are performed, and the results from the FDTD and the EA method are in good agreement.

Piezo Voltage Controlled Planar Hall Effect Devices.

The electrical control of the magnetization switching in ferromagnets is highly desired for future spintronic applications. Here we report on hybrid piezoelectric (PZT)/ferromagnetic (Co2FeAl) devices in which the planar Hall voltage in the ferromagnetic layer is tuned solely by piezo voltages. The change of planar Hall voltage is associated with magnetization switching through 90° in the plane under piezo voltages. Room temperature magnetic NOT and NOR gates are demonstrated based on the piezo voltage controlled Co2FeAl planar Hall effect devices without the external magnetic field. Our demonstration may lead to the realization of both information storage and processing using ferromagnetic materials.

Photo-capacitance response of internal tunnelling coupling in quantum-dot-imbedded heterostructures under selective photo-excitation

Under selective photo-excitation, the capacitance response of internal tunnelling coupling in quantum-dots-imbedded heterostructures is studied to clarify the electronic states and the number densities of electrons filling in the quantum dots (QDs). The random nature for both optical transitions and the filling in a QD assembly makes highly resolved capacitance peaks appear in the C-V characteristic after turning off the photo-excitation.

Influence of magnetocrystalline anisotropy on magneto-optics in GaMnAs/InGaAs epilayer: Influence of magnetocrystalline anisotropy on magneto-optics in GaMnAs/InGaAs epilayer

National Basic Research Program of China [2006CB932801, 2007CB924903, 2007CB924904]; Chinese Academy of Sciences [KJCX.YW.W09]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [60836002, 10674130, 60521001]

Stability of the positively charged manganese centre in GaAs heterostructures examined theoretically by the effective mass approximation calculation near the Γ critical point

This paper describes an n—i—p—i—n model heterostructure with a manganese (Mn)-doped p-type base region to check the stability of a positively charged manganese A+Mn centre with two holes weakly bound by a negatively charged 3d5(Mn) core of a local spin S = 5/2 in the framework of the effective mass approximation near the Γ critical point (k ~ 0). By including the carrier screening effect, the ground state energy and the binding energy of the second hole in the positively charged centre A+Mn are calculated within a hole concentration range from 1 × 1016 cm−3 to 1 × 1017 cm−3, which is achievable by biasing the structure under photo-excitation. For comparison, the ground-state energy of a single hole in the neutral A0Mn centre is calculated in the same concentration range. It turns out that the binding energy of the second hole in the A+Mn centre varies from 9.27 meV to 4.57 meV. We propose that the presence of the A+Mn centre can be examined by measuring the photoluminescence from recombination of electrons in the conduction band with the bound holes in the A+Mn centre since a high frequency dielectric constant of ∞ = 10.66 can be safely adopted in this case. The novel feature of the ability to tune the impurity level of the A+Mn centre makes it attractive for optically and electrically manipulating local magnetic spins in semiconductors.

Capacitance-voltage spectroscopy of In0.5Ga0.5As self-assembled quantum dots in double quantum wells under selective photo-excitation

Selectively photo-excited C-V spectroscopy has been measured in an In0.5Ga0.5As quantum dots (QDs)-embedded, three barrier-two well heterostructure. By comparing with a theoretical capacitance model, the pure capacitive contribution from In0.5Ga0.5As QDs, due to tunnelling coupling between In0.5Ga0.5As QDs and In0.18Ga0.82As quantum well, has been used to obtain the density of charges from photo-excited In0.5Ga0.5As QDs in a very straightforward manner.