5 research outputs found
Surface induced magnetization reversal of MnP nanoclusters embedded in GaP
We investigate the quasi-static magnetic behavior of ensembles of
non-interacting ferromagnetic nanoparticles consisting of MnP nanoclusters
embedded in GaP(001) epilayers grown at 600, 650 and 700{\deg}C. We use a
phenomenological model, in which surface effects are included, to reproduce the
experimental hysteresis curves measured as a function of temperature (120-260
K) and direction of the applied field. The slope of the hysteresis curve during
magnetization reversal is determined by the MnP nanoclusters size distribution,
which is a function of the growth temperature. Our results show that the
coercive field is very sensitive to the strength of the surface anisotropy,
which reduces the energy barrier between the two states of opposite
magnetization. Notably, this reduction in the energy barrier increases by a
factor of 3 as the sample temperature is lowered from 260 to 120 K.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Carrier thermal escape in families of InAs/InP self-assembled quantum dots
We investigate the thermal quenching of the multimodal photoluminescence from
InAs/InP (001) self-assembled quantum dots. The temperature evolution of the
photoluminescence spectra of two samples is followed from 10 K to 300 K. We
develop a coupled rate-equation model that includes the effect of carrier
thermal escape from a quantum dot to the wetting layer and to the InP matrix,
followed by transport, recapture or non-radiative recombination. Our model
reproduces the temperature dependence of the emission of each family of quantum
dots with a single set of parameters. We find that the main escape mechanism of
the carriers confined in the quantum dots is through thermal emission to the
wetting layer. The activation energy for this process is found to be close to
one-half the energy difference between that of a given family of quantum dots
and that of the wetting layer as measured by photoluminescence excitation
experiments. This indicates that electron and holes exit the InAs quantum dots
as correlated pairs