Sebastian Mackowski

PHOTOLUMINESCENCE STUDY OF CDTE/ZNTE SELF-ASSEMBLED QUANTUM DOTS

We report on optical properties of CdTe self-assembled quantum dots (SADs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on ZnTe. Formation of SADs was achieved by deposition of 1.5–2.5 monolayers of CdTe at a substrate temperature of 420 °C and by applying growth interrupts for few seconds in Cd flux. The resulting dots have a typical diameter of 2 nm and a sheet density of 1012 cm−2. At T=2 K the photoluminescence (PL) spectra consist of two emission lines. The high-energy line originates from excitonic recombination in a wetting layer while the low-energy emission PL band is assigned to recombination in SADs. The increase in temperature up to 70 K does not affect the SADs-related emission intensity. It shifts, however, the PL peak energy towards low energies and causes a significant narrowing of the PL linewidth, from 80 meV at 1.9 K to 50 meV at 130 K. The activation energy of the thermal quenching of SADs-related PL emission was found to be equal to 47 meV. This value is three times greater than the one observed i...

Dielectric antennas--a suitable platform for controlling magnetic dipolar emission.

Plasmonic nanoparticles are commonly used to tune and direct the radiation from electric dipolar emitters. Less progress has been made towards understanding complementary systems of magnetic nature. However, it has been recently shown that high-index dielectric spheres can act as effective magnetic antennas. Here we explore the concept of coupling dielectric magnetic antennas with either an electric or magnetic dipolar emitter in a similar fashion to the purely electric systems reported previously. We investigate the enhancement of radiation from systems comprising admixtures of these electric and magnetic elements and perform a full study of its dependence on the distance and polarization of the emitter with respect to the antenna. A comparison to the plasmon antennas reveals remarkable symmetries between electric and magnetic systems, which might lead to novel paradigms in the design of nanophotonic devices that involve magnetic activity.

Hybrid nanostructures for efficient light harvesting

Hybrid nanostructures are systems composed of two or more nanostructures designed for improving the performance over individual components. In this work we introduce the concept of bridging natural photosynthetic protein-pigment complexes with nanostructures fabricated in an artificial way, such as semiconductor nanocrystals, metallic nanoparticles or carbon nanotubes, with the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of light harvesting either via plasmon excitation in metals or absorption tunability characteristics of semiconductors. In addition to presenting basic features of inorganic nanostructures, we discuss recent advances in the field of hybrid nanostructures composed of photosynthetic pigment-protein complexes.

LESION SIMULATING DISEASE1, ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY1, and PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT4 conditionally regulate cellular signaling homeostasis, photosynthesis, water use efficiency, and seed yield in Arabidopsis

Gene functions should be studied not only under stable laboratory conditions, but also in the environment abounding in multiple stresses. There is growing evidence that for a comprehensive insight into the function of plant genes, it is crucial to assess their functionalities under a wide range of conditions. In this study, we examined the role of LESION SIMULATING DISEASE1 (LSD1), ENHANCED DISEASE SUSCEPTIBILITY1 (EDS1), and PHYTOALEXIN DEFICIENT4 (PAD4) in the regulation of photosynthesis, water use efficiency, reactive oxygen species/hormonal homeostasis, and seed yield in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) grown in the laboratory and in the field. We demonstrate that the LSD1 null mutant (lsd1), which is known to exhibit a runaway cell death in nonpermissive conditions, proves to be more tolerant to combined drought and high-light stress than the wild type. Moreover, depending on growing conditions, it shows variations in water use efficiency, salicylic acid and hydrogen peroxide concentrations, photosystem II maximum efficiency, and transcription profiles. However, despite these changes, lsd1 demonstrates similar seed yield under all tested conditions. All of these traits depend on EDS1 and PAD4. The differences in the pathways prevailing in the lsd1 in various growing environments are manifested by the significantly smaller number of transcripts deregulated in the field compared with the laboratory, with only 43 commonly regulated genes. Our data indicate that LSD1, EDS1, and PAD4 participate in the regulation of various molecular and physiological processes that influence Arabidopsis fitness. On the basis of these results, we emphasize that the function of such important regulators as LSD1, EDS1, and PAD4 should be studied not only under stable laboratory conditions, but also in the environment abounding in multiple stresses.

CdTe/ZnTe quantum dots: growth and optical properties

Abstract This paper gives an overview of molecular beam epitaxy growth aspects and of optical properties of CdTe quantum dots grown on ZnTe by self-assembly. It is shown that quantum dots in this material system can be obtained either by depositing CdTe at a high substrate temperature or by subjecting CdTe layer to a healing process, up to 70 s long before its capping or, eventually, by applying these two methods simultaneously. Moreover it is found, that one can also use the atomic layer epitaxy method to achieve the formation. From optical measurements performed on large quantum dot ensembles it is found out that the quantum dot emission is much broader than that from quantum wells, and that it is observable up to much higher temperatures, which indicates strong exciton localization. The latter is also evidenced by an insensitivity of the decay time of the exciton recombination (∼300 ps) to the temperature. From the presence of a second, very long decay time (∼5 ns) and from disappearance of the sharp lines related to recombination in single dots, the acoustic phonon scattering of excitons is found to play an important role in these quantum dot structures. From a magnetic field dependence of the single dot emission energy, the exciton effective g-factor and spatial extension of the exciton wave function are deduced to be equal to −3 and 3 nm, respectively. Both the g-factor and the value of the diamagnetic shift are found to be independent of the energy of the quantum dot emission at B=0 T and of the in-plane symmetry of its potential.

Structural and optical evidence of island correlation in CdTe/ZnTe superlattices

The properties of superlattices consisting of 2 monolayer wide CdTe insertions into ZnTe spacer barriers with thickness ranging from 3 to 75 monolayers are investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. We show that quasi zero-dimensional CdTe islands form in this highly lattice-mismatched system. For spacer thickness smaller than 25 monolayers, the islands are vertically correlated along the axis tilted by 40° with respect to the growth direction, while for thicker ZnTe spacers no correlation is observed. The electronic coupling between the correlated islands manifests itself by the appearing of an additional emission band at energies lower to those corresponding to uncorrelated dots. The optical spectroscopy data reveal zero-dimensional localization of excitons by the electronically coupled islands. The decay time of the excitonic recombination is found to be over an order of magnitude longer in the case of the coupled islands than in the case of isolated ones.

Tuning the properties of magnetic CdMnTe quantum dots

We show that CdMnTe self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) can be formed by depositing a submonolayer of Mn ions over a ZnTe surface prior to deposition of the CdTe dot layer. Single-dot emission lines and strongly polarized QD photoluminescence (PL) in an applied magnetic field confirm the presence of Mn in individual QDs. The width of PL lines of the single CdMnTe dots is 3 meV due to magnetic moment fluctuations (MMFs) of the Mn ions. After rapid thermal annealing, the emission lines of individual magnetic QDs narrow significantly to 0.25 meV, showing that effect of MMFs is strongly reduced, most probably due to an increase in the average QD size. These results suggest a way to tune the spin properties of magnetic QDs.

Exciton spin relaxation time in quantum dots measured by continuous-wave photoluminescence spectroscopy

We demonstrate a method of measuring the exciton spin relaxation time in semiconductor nanostructures by continuous-wave photoluminescence. We find that for self-assembled CdTe quantum dots (QDs) the degree of circular polarization of emission is larger when exciting polarized excitons into the lower energy spin state (σ−-polarized) than in the case when the excitons are excited into the higher energy spin state (σ+-polarized). A simple rate equation model gives the exciton spin relaxation time in CdTe QDs equal to τS=4.8±0.3 ns, significantly longer than the QD exciton recombination time τR=300 ps.

SIL-based confocal fluorescence microscope for investigating individual nanostructures

Atomic layer deposition of ultrathin HfO2 on unmodified graphene from HfCl4 and H2O was investigated. Surface RMS roughness down to 0.5 nm was obtained for amorphous, 30 nm thick hafnia film grown at 180 degrees C. HfO2 was deposited also in a two-step temperature process where the initial growth of about 1 nm at 170 degrees C was continued up to 10-30 nm at 300 degrees C. This process yielded uniform, monoclinic HfO2 films with RMS roughness of 1.7 nm for 10-12 nm thick films and 2.5 nm for 30 nm thick films. Raman spectroscopy studies revealed that the deposition process caused compressive biaxial strain in graphene whereas no extra defects were generated. An 11 nm thick HfO2 film deposited onto bilayer graphene reduced the electron mobility by less than 10% at the Dirac point and by 30-40% far away from it.We developed a fluorescence confocal microscope equipped with a hemispherical solid immersion lens (SIL) and apply it to study the optical properties of light-harvesting complexes. We demonstrate that the collection efficiency of the SIL-equipped microscope is significantly improved, as is the spatial resolution, which reaches 600 nm. This experimental setup is suitable for detailed studies of physical phenomena in hybrid nanostructures. In particular, we compare the results of fluorescence intensity measurements for a light-harvesting peridinin-chlorophyll-protein (PCP) complex with and without the SIL.

Optically-induced magnetization of CdMnTe self-assembled quantum dots

We demonstrate that resonant excitation of CdMnTe self-assembled quantum dots creates an ensemble of spin-polarized magnetic polarons at B=0 T. The strong spatial confinement characteristic of quantum dots significantly increases the stability of magnetic polarons so that the optically-induced spin alignment is observed for temperatures >120 K.