Vasyl Kuryliuk

Photovoltage Performance of Ge/Si Nanostructures Grown on Intermediate Ultrathin SiOX Layers

An enhanced photovoltage is reported to occur in Ge/Si structures with a SiOx layer having a thickness of 0.5-2 nm and placed between a Si substrate and Ge nanoislands. The effect is interpreted in terms of an increased separation distance for photoexcited electrons and holes occurring in the stress fields generated in the oxidized Ge/SiOx/Si structure. The electron-hole separation is modeled utilizing finite-element method techniques, and a good agreement between the experimentally observed enhancement and the computationally increased inter-charge distance is obtained. It is also found that insertion of the oxide layer accelerates the photovoltage decay. This result is interpreted in terms of competing processes, involving the direct recombination of the separated electrons and holes and multi-trapping behavior typical of disordered systems caused by Ge islands.

Effects of low temperature anneals on the photovoltage in Si nanocrystals

We report on the time decays of surface photovoltage (SPV) and SPV spectra for Si nanocrystals (nc-Si) embedded into a SiO2 matrix. After precipitation at 1150 °C anneal in Ar the SPV increases by a factor of ≈30 compared with the value observed in an oxidized Si substrate. An increase in the signal is accompanied by longer time decays in the SPV transients (roughly from tens to hundreds of microseconds). The separation of photoexcited electrons and holes at the nc-Si/SiO2 interface is expected to play a major role in increasing the SPV signal. We emphasize that annealing of nc-Si at 450 °C in either N2 + O2 or H2 results in a remarkable increase (up to 10-fold) in photoluminescence intensity, which is accompanied by a concomitant decrease in the SPV signal and modification of the SPV decay transients. Anneal in N2 + O2 ambient slightly accelerates the SPV decay, whereas anneal in H2 dramatically speeds it up. Employment of Fourier transform infrared absorption and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy techniq...

Acoustically driven charge separation in semiconductor heterostructures sensed by optical spectroscopy techniques

We demonstrate a method of using a two-layer sandwich structure, which includes a LiNbO3 plate and a semiconductor heterostructure to create an inhomogeneous stress and piezoelectric harmonic potential in the semiconductor. Both the GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well (QW) structures and SiGe/Si heterostructures are attempted, working with and without using a piezoelectric field in the semiconductor layer. The standing-wave fields generated in the semiconductor and the electron and hole distributions driven by the piezoelectric field are computed by finite element method (FEM) techniques. It is experimentally shown that, in a GaAs/AlxGa1-xAs asymmetric double quantum well structure, the resonance enhancement of the narrower QW photoluminescence band is observed, which may be explained by the resonant charge transfer between the wider and narrower QWs. It is also shown that the piezoelectric fields quench the pure LO-phonon lines in the Raman spectra, whereas the coupled LO-phonon-plasmon mode strengthens. Experimental results indicate that the charge separation occurs in the plane of the QWs due to the piezoelectric fields. The recombination of carriers in the SiGe/Si heterostructures can be effectively enhanced by the presence of ultrasonic stress, displaying features consistent with varying electrical activity at dislocations.