Shun-Tung Yen

Analysis of heterostructures for electroluminescent refrigeration and light emitting without heat generation

We perform a self-consistent calculation to investigate the feasibility of electroluminescent refrigeration and light emitting without heat generation in AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures, taking into account the effects of various recombination processes. The effect of radiation extraction on the cooling capacity and efficiency is also considered. Carrier blocking layers are used to almost eliminate current leakage and improve the injection efficiency to nearly 100%. An analysis is presented of the cooling power density, the cooling efficiency, and the radiative power density as functions of the applied voltage. We also explore the dependences of the cooling related quantities on the thickness and the doping of the active region. A GaAs active layer of thickness 5u2002μm at 300 K can give a limiting cooling power density of 97u2002W/cm2. We show that a net cooling power (>severalu2002W/cm2) and a high-power light emitting (>100u2002W/cm2) without heating are feasible. They require an overall efficiency of more than 90%, whic...

Improvement in threshold of InGaN∕GaN quantum-well lasers by p-type modulation doping

The optical properties of modulation-doped InGaN∕GaN laser diodes are theoretically studied with the effects of electron spillover from quantum wells considered. We use a six-band model including the strain effect for calculating valence band states. The continuous subbands are treated by a dense discretization for the electrons spilling from the quantum wells. The calculation results show that the threshold current can be significantly reduced by p-type modulation doping around the wells but not by n-type doping, supposed that the layers are of a perfect quality and the impurity-induced defects are ignored. Also, the p-type modulation doping can make the threshold current more insensitive to the cavity loss compared with other cases. An optimized threshold current density can be achieved for single-quantum-well lasers by introducing p-type dopants. However, the dopant concentration is high and may be inaccessible. For double-quantum-well lasers an optimized low threshold current can be achieved with a sl...

Evidence for capture of holes into resonant states in boron-doped silicon

The variation of hole population in the resonant states of B-doped Si excited by sequences of short electric-field pulses has been investigated by the technique of time-resolved step-scan far-infrared spectroscopy. From the variation of the p(3/2) absorptions, we find that the hole population in the ground state decreases continuously with the sequential electric pulses, as a result of the breakdown delay and hole accumulation in long-lived excited states. The measured time-varying spectra of the p(1/2) series have been analyzed and attributed to a significant variation of the hole population in the resonant states. We have also observed a new absorption line at 676 cm(-1) which is probably caused by the electric-field induced mixing of the resonant states

A self-consistent investigation of the semimetal-semiconductor transition in InAs/GaSb quantum wells under external electric fields

We investigate the phase transitions in InAs/GaSb quantum wells sandwiched between two wide-gap AlSb barrier layers under an external electric field perpendicular to interfaces. The Schrodinger and the Poisson equations are solved self-consistently to derive the subband dispersions, the potential profile, the electron charge distribution in the InAs layer, and the hole charge distribution in the GaSb layer. The Burt-Foreman envelope function theory and the scattering matrix method are used to solve the Schrodinger equation in the framework of the eight-band k (.) p model, including the spin-splitting of subbands in our calculation. We have found that in a thick InAs/GaSb quantum well, which has been investigated experimentally by Cooper et al (1998 Phys. Rev. B 57 11915), under low external electric fields, two electron levels stay below the highest hole level at zero in-plane wavevector k(parallel to) = 0. Then, the anticrossings of electron and hole levels produce several minigaps in the inplane dispersions, inside which the states of other subbands exist. As a result, the system is in a sernimetal phase. With increasing external electric field, the semimetal phase changes to semiconductor phase with only one hybridization gap. When all electron levels become higher than the hole levels at higher electric fields, the system has a semiconducting gap. (Less)

Extraction of infrared optical constants from fringing reflectance spectra

We propose a simple and reliable method for extracting the optical constants of homogeneous dielectrics which can be pure or impure, and polar or nonpolar. The extraction is made from fringing reflectance spectra of slab samples with and without metal on the backside. The method is demonstrated to work well for polar semiconductors GaAs and InP in the infrared regime. The extracted extinction coefficient spectra exhibit plenty of features which correspond well to those in absorption and Raman spectra.

Enhanced thermal radiation in terahertz and far-infrared regime by hot phonon excitation in a field effect transistor

We demonstrate the hot phonon effect on thermal radiation in the terahertz and far-infrared regime. A pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor is used for efficiently exciting hot phonons. Boosting the hot phonon population can enhance the efficiency of thermal radiation. The transistor can yield at least a radiation power of 13u2009μW and a power conversion efficiency higher than a resistor by more than 20%.

Analysis of GaAs∕GaSb∕GaAs structures under optical excitation considering surface states as an electron reservoir

We present a self-consistent model for the analysis of the carrier distribution, the band profile, and the transition energy of type-II aligned GaAs∕GaSb∕GaAs structures under optical excitation. The model considers the surface states as an electron reservoir, associated with pinning of the conduction band Fermi level at the midgap. In our model, the optical generated holes in the GaSb quantum well causes a potential well on one side of the GaSb layer, which can efficiently accommodate the optically generated electrons. Accordingly, we derive a relation connecting the excitation power to the carrier density. Using the relation and the effective triangular potential approximation, we obtain a simple formula for the transition energy shift as a function of the excitation power, which follows the cube-root rule quite well. The calculation allows the determination of the band offset of a type-II heterointerface by comparison with data from photoluminescence measurement. The result suggests the unstrained vale...

Effects of lattice mismatch and bulk anisotropy on interband tunneling in broken-gap heterostructures

We have studied the effects of bulk anisotropy and the strain induced by lattice mismatch on the interband tunneling in broken-gap single-barrier InAs/AlSb/GaSb heterostructures and double-barrier InAs/AlSb/GaSb/InAs/AlSb/GaSb heterostructures. We have used the eight-band k.p model and the scattering matrix method, combined with the Burt envelope function theory, to calculate the interband transmission coefficients through the broken-gap heterostructures. We have found a noticeable anisotropy of the transmission coefficients when the magnitude of the in-plane wave vector increases to around 0.25 nm(-1). We have also found that the strain and the bulk anisotropy of quasiparticle dispersion produce additional peaks in the tunneling probability. For the double-barrier resonant-tunneling structures we discover a large spin splitting of the resonant-tunneling peaks caused by the lack of inversion symmetry. A strong influence of the strain induced by lattice mismatch appears in the current-voltage characteristics of the studied broken-gap heterostructures. In InAs/AlSb/GaSb structures the interband tunneling processes into the heavy-hole states contribute mainly to the peak current density if the sample is grown on InAs, but if the sample is grown on GaSb the interband tunneling processes into the light-hole states become the main contribution to the peak current density. As a result, the structure grown on GaSb has a much larger peak current density. This phenomenon was observed experimentally. (Less)

Efficient far-infrared thermal bremsstrahlung radiation from a heterojunction bipolar transistor

We investigate the far-infrared thermal radiation properties of a heterojunction bipolar transistor. The device conveniently provides a high electric field for electrons to heat the lattice and the electron gas in a background with ions embedded. Because of very high effective temperature of the electron gas in the collector, the electron-ion bremsstrahlung makes efficient the thermal radiation in the far-infrared region. The transistor can yield a radiation power of 0.1 mW with the spectral region between 2 and 75 THz and a power conversion efficiency of 6u2009×u200910−4. Such output contains a power of 20u2009μW in the low-frequency part (2–20 THz) of the spectrum.

Electric-dipole transitions between group-III acceptor states in uniaxially compressed Ge

We study the electric-dipole transitions between group-III acceptor states in Ge under stress along the [001] crystallographic direction in the effective mass approximation. We systematically investigate the cases of zero stress, infinitesimal stress, and finite stress including the low-stress and the high-stress regions. Our results show quantitative agreement with experimental data at zero stress and at infinitesimal stress. The relative intensities of infinitesimal-stress-induced components of transitions from the 1Γ(8)(+) state to the nΓ(8)(-) states do not correlate significantly with the species of acceptors except for the transition to the 1Γ(8)(-) state. The oscillator strengths of some transitions are susceptible to the stress in the low-stress region (<0.3 kbar), and could be zero at a specific stress. The behaviours of the stress dependence of oscillator strengths for different transition lines are explained in terms of the compositions of the wavefunctions and the dipole matrix elements. In the high-stress region (> or approximately equal3 kbar), the ground state is s-like, and only the transitions to the p-like states can have non-negligible oscillator strengths. The photon absorbed (emitted) and associated with each electric-dipole transition between the s-like and the p-like states is polarized either parallel or perpendicular to the stress direction. We also calculate the absorption spectra for Ge:Ga at liquid-helium temperature. The results are in good agreement with experiment.