Strain-driven light polarization switching in deep ultraviolet nitride emitters

Residual strain plays a critical role in determining the crystalline quality of nitride epitaxial layers and in modifying their band structure; this often leads to several interesting physical phenomena. It is found, for example, that compressive strain in AlxGa1-xN layers grown on AlyGa1-yN (x<y) templates results in an anti-crossing of the valence bands at considerably much higher Al composition than expected. This happens even in the presence of large and negative crystal field splitting energy for AlxGa1-xN layers. A judicious magnitude of the compressive strain can support vertical light emission (out of the c-plane) from AlxGa1-xN quantum wells up to x\approx 0.80, which is desirable for the development of deep ultraviolet light-emitting diodes designed to operate below 250nm with transverse electric polarization characteristics

Valley Polarization in Si(100) at Zero Magnetic Field

The valley splitting, which lifts the degeneracy of the lowest two valley states in a SiO$_2$/(100)Si/SiO$_2$ quantum well is examined through transport measurements. We demonstrate that the valley splitting can be observed directly as a step in the conductance defining a boundary between valley-unpolarized and polarized regions. This persists to well above liquid helium temperature and shows no dependence on magnetic field, indicating that single-particle valley splitting and valley-polarization exist in (100) silicon even at zero magnetic field.Comment: Accpeted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Resistively-detected NMR lineshapes in a quasi-one dimensional electron system

We observe variation in the resistively-detected nuclear magnetic resonance (RDNMR) lineshapes in quantum Hall breakdown. The breakdown is locally occurred in a gate-defined quantum point contact (QPC) region. Of particular interest is the observation of a dispersive lineshape occured when the bulk 2D electron gas (2DEG) is set to $\nu_{\rm{b}} = 2$ and the QPC filling factor to the vicinity of $\nu_{\rm{QPC}} = 1$, strikingly resemble the dispersive lineshape observed on a 2D quantum Hall state. This previously unobserved lineshape in a QPC points to simultaneous occurrence of two hyperfine-mediated spin flip-flop processes within the QPC. Those events give rise to two different sets of nuclei polarized in the opposite direction and positioned at a separate region with different degree of electronic polarizations.Comment: Accepted as a rapid communication in PR