Anisotropic optical phonon scattering of holes in cubic semiconductors

The formula for the nonpolar optical phonon scattering rate of holes in cubic semiconductors is obtained in the case of strong valence band anisotropy. The deformation potential approximation is used. A three-band, 6x6, k(.)p Luttinger-Kohn representation includes states belonging to the heavy, light, and split-off bands. Mixing with the latter causes strong anisotropy in the transition matrix elements as well as in the density of final states. The derived formula is recommended for silicon, where inter- and intravalence-band scattering rates are much more strongly anisotropic and have significantly different values than those estimated from the usual two-band 4x4, warped spheres approximation that neglects the split-off band. Results for the more isotropic case of germanium are presented for comparison

Tunable two-dimensional plasmon resonances in an InGaAs/InP high electron mobility transistor

Voltage-tunable plasmon resonances in the two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) of a high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) fabricated from the InGaAs/InP materials system are reported. The device was fabricated from a commercial HEMT wafer by depositing source and drain contacts using standard photolithography and a semitransparent gate contact that consisted of a 0.5 mu m period transmission grating formed by electron-beam lithography. Narrow-band resonant absorption of terahertz radiation was observed in transmission in the frequency range of 10-50 cm(-1). The resonance frequency depends on the gate-tuned sheet charge density of the 2DEG. The observed separation of resonance fundamental from its harmonics and their shift with gate bias are compared with theory

Terahertz amplification in delta-doped germanium films with in-plane transport

Amplification of terahertz radiation on intersubband transitions has been analyzed by numerical Monte Carlo simulation for p-type delta-doped Ge films with in-plane transport configuration of applied electric and magnetic fields. A significant increase of the gain is found, compared to existing bulk p-Ge lasers, due to spatial separation of light and heavy hole streams, which reduces scattering of light holes on ionized impurities and heavy holes. The considered device has potential as a widely tunable (2-4 THz) laser with high duty cycle and operating temperatures up to 50 K

Concentration of atomic hydrogen diffused into silicon in the temperature range 900–1300 °C

Boron-doped Czochralski silicon samples with [B]~1017 cm−3 have been heated at various temperatures in the range 800–1300 °C in an atmosphere of hydrogen and then quenched. The concentration of [H-B] pairs was measured by infrared localized vibrational mode spectroscopy. It was concluded that the solubility of atomic hydrogen is greater than [Hs] = 5.6 × 1018 exp( − 0.95 eV/kT)cm−3 at the temperatures investigated

Terahertz gain on intersubband transitions in multilayer delta-doped p-Ge structures

A far-infrared laser concept based on intersubband transitions of holes in p-type periodically delta-doped semiconductor films is studied using numerical Monte Carlo simulation of hot-hole dynamics. The considered device consists of monocrystalline pure Ge layers periodically interleaved with delta-doped layers and operates with vertical hole transport in the presence of an in-plane magnetic field. Population inversion on intersubband transitions arises due to light-hole accumulation in E perpendicular to B fields, as in the bulk p-Ge laser. However, the considered structure achieves spatial separation of hole accumulation regions from the doped layers, which reduces ionized-impurity and carrier-carrier scattering for the majority of light holes. This allows a remarkable increase of the gain in comparison with bulk p-Ge lasers. Population inversion and gain sufficient for laser operation are expected up to 77 K. Test structures grown by chemical-vapor deposition demonstrate feasibility of producing the device with sufficient active thickness to allow quasioptical electrodynamic cavity solutions

Millimeter-wave photoresponse due to excitation of two-dimensional plasmons in InGaAs/InP high-electron-mobility transistors

A polarized photoresponse to mm-wave radiation over the frequency range of 40 to 108 GHz is demonstrated in a grating-gated high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) formed by an InGaAs/InP heterostructure. The photoresponse is observed within the plasmon resonance absorption band of the HEMT, whose gate consists of a 9 mu m period grating that couples incident radiation to plasmons in the 2D electron gas. Gate-bias changes the channel carrier concentration, causing a corresponding change in photoresponse in agreement with theoretical expectations for the shift in the plasmon resonance band. The noise equivalent power is estimated to be 235 pW/Hz(1/2)

Site-Selective Spectroscopy And Crystal-Field Analysis For Nd3+ In Strontium Fluorovanadate

Site‐selective spectroscopy reveals that Nd3+ ions occupy more than 40 different crystal‐field environments in Sr5(VO4)3F. Preferential energy transfer to the site responsible for 1 μm lasing occurs but becomes less complete with increasing temperature. The 4I and 4F3/2 Stark levels of the lasing site have been determined and an analysis of the crystal field performed. From the crystal‐field fitting parameters Bkq, a calculated energy‐level spectrum is determined up to 17 500 cm−1 with a rms deviation from the available experimental levels of 6 cm−1

Injection-seeded internal-reflection-mode p-Ge laser exceeds 10 W peak terahertz power

Injection seeding of a large active p-Ge laser crystal operating on total internal reflection modes is demonstrated with peak output power at the level of 40 W in the 1.5-4.2 THz spectral range. The improvement over traditional 1 W axial mode p-Ge lasers is due both to spatially and temporally more efficient use of the available population inversion

Precession of a Freely Rotating Rigid Body. Inelastic Relaxation in the Vicinity of Poles

When a solid body is freely rotating at an angular velocity ${\bf \Omega}$, the ellipsoid of constant angular momentum, in the space $\Omega_1, \Omega_2, \Omega_3$, has poles corresponding to spinning about the minimal-inertia and maximal-inertia axes. The first pole may be considered stable if we neglect the inner dissipation, but becomes unstable if the dissipation is taken into account. This happens because the bodies dissipate energy when they rotate about any axis different from principal. In the case of an oblate symmetrical body, the angular velocity describes a circular cone about the vector of (conserved) angular momentum. In the course of relaxation, the angle of this cone decreases, so that both the angular velocity and the maximal-inertia axis of the body align along the angular momentum. The generic case of an asymmetric body is far more involved. Even the symmetrical prolate body exhibits a sophisticated behaviour, because an infinitesimally small deviation of the body's shape from a rotational symmetry (i.e., a small difference between the largest and second largest moments of inertia) yields libration: the precession trajectory is not a circle but an ellipse. In this article we show that often the most effective internal dissipation takes place at twice the frequency of the body's precession. Applications to precessing asteroids, cosmic-dust alignment, and rotating satellites are discussed.Comment: 47 pages, 1 figur

Surface and grain-boundary scattering in nanometric Cu films

We report a quantitative analysis of both surface and grain-boundary scattering in Cu thin films with independent variation in film thickness (27 to 158 nm) and grain size (35 to 425 nm) in samples prepared by subambient temperature film deposition followed by annealing. Film resistivities of carefully characterized samples were measured at both room temperature and at 4.2 K and were compared with physical models that include the effects of surface and grain-boundary scattering. Grain-boundary scattering is found to provide the strongest contribution to the resistivity increase. However, a weaker, but significant, role is observed for surface scattering. We find that the data are best fit when the Mayadas and Shatzkes\u27 model of grain-boundary scattering and the Fuchs and Sondheimer\u27s model of surface scattering resistivity contributions are combined using Matthiessen\u27s rule (simple addition of resistivities). This finding implies that grain-boundary scattering preserves the component of electron momentum parallel to the grain-boundary plane. Using Matthiessen\u27s rule, we find our data are well described by a grain-boundary reflection coefficient of 0.43 and a surface specularity coefficient of 0.52. This analysis finds a significantly lower contribution from surface scattering than has been reported in previous works and we attribute this difference to the careful quantitative microstructural characterization performed on our samples. The effects of surface roughness, impurities, voids, and interactions between surface and grain-boundary scattering are also examined and their importance is evaluated