A novel index in healthy infants and children — subarachnoid space: ventricle ratio

Background: The subarachnoid space (SAS) and ventricular width (VW) in normalinfants and children were studied with ultrasonography to provide the objectivemeasurement and define a normal range for these measurements. The additional aim was to determine the stable ratio as a SAS/VW.Materials and methods: A total of 100 healthy subjects, including 48 males and52 females, were studied. The cases were divided into 3 age groups: 0–6 months(n = 65), 7–12 months (n = 24) and > 13 months (n = 11). Transfontanel ultrasonography was performed in all the cases. SAS, VW and the SAS/VW ratios were calculated. The study was approved by the ethical committee. All parents wereinformed about the sonographic examination and their approvals were taken.Results: SAS was calculated as 3.1 (0.5–6) mm and VW was calculated as 3.6(1.3–5) mm. SAS/VW ratio was 0.9 ± 0.3. There was no statistically significant difference among SAS, VW and SAS/VW ratios in 3–97 percentile group (p > 0.05).Conclusions: Ultrasonography can be used as a practicable and reproducible modalityin the measurement of SAS and VW in healthy children. It is a non-invasivemethod and allows for serial follow-up. SAS/VW ratio can be used as an index inhealthy children

Structural and optical quality of GaN grown on Sc2O3/Y2O3/Si(111)

Thick (∼900 nm) GaN layers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy on cost-effective Sc2O3/Y2O3/Si(111) substrates and characterized by x-ray diffraction and photoluminescence. Samples grown in Ga-rich condition show superior structural and optical quality with reduced density of cubic GaN inclusions within the hexagonal matrix and a relatively strong photoluminescence emission at 3.45 eV at 10 K. Cubic inclusions are formed in the initial growth stage and their concentration is reduced with increasing film thickness and after rapid thermal annealing

Impact of active layer design on InGaN radiative recombination coefficient and LED performance

The relative roles of radiative and nonradiative processes and the polarization field on the light emission from blue (∼425 nm) InGaN light emitting diodes (LEDs) have been studied. Single and multiple double heterostructure (DH) designs have been investigated with multiple DH structures showing improved efficiencies. Experimental results supported by numerical simulations of injection dependent electron and hole wavefunction overlap and the corresponding radiative recombination coefficients suggest that increasing the effective active region thickness by employing multiple InGaN DH structures separated by thin and low barriers is promising for LEDs with high efficiency retention at high injection. The use of thin and low barriers is crucial to enhance carrier transport across the active region. Although increasing the single DH thickness from 3 to 6 nm improves the peak external quantum efficiency (EQE) by nearly 3.6 times due to increased density of states and increased emitting volume, the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) suffers a loss of nearly 30%. A further increase in the DH thickness to 9 and 11 nm results in a significantly slower rate of increase of EQE with current injection and lower peak EQE values presumably due to degradation of the InGaN material quality and reduced electron-hole spatial overlap. Increasing the number of 3 nm DH active regions separated by thin (3 nm) In0.06Ga0.94N barriers improves EQE, while maintaining high IQE (above 95% at a carrier concentration of 1018 cm−3) and showing negligible EQE degradation up to 550 A/cm2 in 400 × 400 μm2 devices due to increased emitting volume and high radiative recombination coefficients and high IQE. Time-resolved photoluminescence measurements revealed higher radiative recombination rates with increasing excitation due to screening of the internal field and enhanced electron and hole overlap at higher injection levels. To shed light on the experimental observations, the effect of free-carrier screening on the polarization field at different injection levels and the resulting impact on the quantum efficiency were investigated by numerical simulations