Discovery From Non-Parties (Third-Party Discovery) in International Arbitration

International arbitration rules and many arbitration laws usually provide procedures that permit tribunals to order parties to disclose documents and other materials to the other parties.1 More complex are the rules that determine opportunities to obtain discovery from persons that are not party to the arbitration (third-party discovery). This article will review third-party discovery under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the provisions of the US Code s.1782 that authorise US courts to act in aid of actions before foreign tribunals. Section 1782 has unique interest at this time because it figured prominently in the EU antitrust investigation of Intel that was initiated on request from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Early in that investigation, AMD filed a s.1782 request in the US District Court to obtain evidence from US sources for submission to the DG-Competition of the European Commission (EC). This request ultimately led to the Supreme Court’s decision in Intel Corp v Advanced Micro Devices Inc2 which appeared to significantly expand the scope of s.1782. Ironically, after AMD won on key legal issues in the Supreme Court, the District Court on remand exercised its discretion and denied the request for judicial assistance. This paper first describes the FAA non-party discovery rules and the split among the federal appellate courts concerning the authority of arbitrators to order prehearing discovery from non-parties. Next, it provides an analysis of the meaning of the terms “interested party” and “tribunal”—terms that were controversially interpreted by the Supreme Court in Intel and are essential to the application of s.1782. Finally, it discusses the “discretionary” factors used by the federal courts in deciding whether to grant a s.1782 request even when the statutory criteria are met. The opportunity to exercise this discretion seems to rebut the argument that the Supreme Court’s interpretation of s.1782 gives participants before foreign tribunals more discovery rights in the United States than are available to the parties in arbitrations covered by the FAA

Raman spectroscopy of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires

Raman spectroscopy is employed to characterize structural and phonon properties of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires (NWs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si substrates. According to polarization-dependent measurements performed on single NWs, the dominant Raman modes associated with zone-center optical phonons obey selection rules in a zinc-blende lattice, confirming high crystalline quality of the NWs. Two additional modes at 360 and 397 cm(-1) that are specific to the NW architecture are also detected in resonant Raman spectra and are attributed to defect-activated scattering involving zone-edge transverse optical phonons and surface optical phonons, respectively. It is concluded that the formation of the involved defect states are mainly promoted during the NW growth with a high V/III ratio.Funding Agencies|Vetenskapsradet (Swedish Research Council) [621-2010-3815]; U.S. National Science Foundation [DMR-0907652, DMR-1106369]; Royal Government of Thailand Scholarship</p

Optical properties of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires: a temperature-dependent study Optical properties of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires: a temperature-dependent study

Abstract Recombination processes in GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires (NWs) grown on Si are studied by employing temperature-dependent continuous wave and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. The NWs exhibit bright PL emissions due to radiative carrier recombination in the GaNP shell. Though the radiative efficiency of the NWs is found to decrease with increasing temperature, the PL emission remains intense even at room temperature. Two thermal quenching processes of the PL emission are found to be responsible for the degradation of the PL intensity at elevated temperatures: (a) thermal activation of the localized excitons from the N-related localized states and (b) activation of a competing non-radiative recombination (NRR) process. The activation energy of the latter process is determined as being around 180 meV. NRR is also found to cause a significant decrease of carrier lifetime

Energy Upconversion in GaP/GaNP Core/Shell Nanowires for Enhanced Near-Infrared Light Harvesting

Semiconductor nanowires (NWs) have recently gained increasing interest due to their great potential for photovoltaics. A novel material system based on GaNP NWs is considered to be highly suitable for applications in efficient multi-junction and intermediate band solar cells. This work shows that though the bandgap energies of GaNx P1-x alloys lie within the visible spectral range (i.e., within 540-650 nm for the currently achievable x &lt; 3%), coaxial GaNP NWs grown on Si substrates can also harvest infrared light utilizing energy upconversion. This energy upconversion can be monitored via anti-Stokes near-band-edge photoluminescence (PL) from GaNP, visible even from a single NW. The dominant process responsible for this effect is identified as being due to two-step two-photon absorption (TS-TPA) via a deep level lying at about 1.28 eV above the valence band, based on the measured dependences of the anti-Stokes PL on excitation power and wavelength. The formation of the defect participating in the TS-TPA process is concluded to be promoted by nitrogen incorporation. The revealed defect-mediated TS-TPA process can boost efficiency of harvesting solar energy in GaNP NWs, beneficial for applications of this novel material system in third-generation photovoltaic devices

Enhancement of the performance of GaP solar cells by embedded In(N)P quantum dots

Improving the utilization of solar spectra of wide bandgap semiconductors that can potentially provide enough free energy is one of the promising strategies for realizing efficient and spontaneous integrated conversion of solar energy to chemical fuels. We demonstrate herein that nitrogen doped InP quantum dots (QDs) embedded in wide bandgap GaP could improve the solar energy conversion performance. Photoelectrochemical experiments in contact with a nonaqueous, reversible redox couple indicated that the QD-embedded devices exhibited improved performance relative to devices without QDs, with short-circuit current densities increasing from 0.16 mA cm^(−2) for GaP-only devices to 0.23 and 0.29 mA cm^(−2) for InP and InNP QD-embedded devices, respectively. Additionally, the open-circuit voltages increased from 0.95 V for GaP-only devices to 1.11 and 1.14 V for InP and InNP QD-embedded devices, respectively, and the external quantum yield of the devices was also enhanced by the embedded QDs. The improvement is attributed to the absorption of sub-bandgap photons by the In(N)P QDs

Closing Remarks

Raman spectroscopy is employed to characterize structural and phonon properties of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires (NWs) grown by molecular beam epitaxy on Si substrates. According to polarization-dependent measurements performed on single NWs, the dominant Raman modes associated with zone-center optical phonons obey selection rules in a zinc-blende lattice, confirming high crystalline quality of the NWs. Two additional modes at 360 and 397 cm(-1) that are specific to the NW architecture are also detected in resonant Raman spectra and are attributed to defect-activated scattering involving zone-edge transverse optical phonons and surface optical phonons, respectively. It is concluded that the formation of the involved defect states are mainly promoted during the NW growth with a high V/III ratio.Funding Agencies|Vetenskapsradet (Swedish Research Council) [621-2010-3815]; U.S. National Science Foundation [DMR-0907652, DMR-1106369]; Royal Government of Thailand Scholarship</p

Optical properties of GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires : a temperature-dependent study

Recombination processes in GaP/GaNP core/shell nanowires (NWs) grown on Si are studied by employing temperature-dependent continuous wave and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. The NWs exhibit bright PL emissions due to radiative carrier recombination in the GaNP shell. Though the radiative efficiency of the NWs is found to decrease with increasing temperature, the PL emission remains intense even at room temperature. Two thermal quenching processes of the PL emission are found to be responsible for the degradation of the PL intensity at elevated temperatures: (a) thermal activation of the localized excitons from the N-related localized states and (b) activation of a competing non-radiative recombination (NRR) process. The activation energy of the latter process is determined as being around 180 meV. NRR is also found to cause a significant decrease of carrier lifetime

Growth and characterization of dilute nitride GaNxP1−x nanowires and GaNxP1−x/GaNyP1−y core/shell nanowires on Si (111) by gas source molecular beam epitaxy

We have demonstrated self-catalyzed GaN xP1−x and GaN xP1−x/GaNyP1−y core/shell nanowire growth by gas-source molecular beam epitaxy. The growth window for GaN xP1−x nanowires was observed to be comparable to that of GaP nanowires (∼585 °C to ∼615 °C). Transmission electron microscopy showed a mixture of cubic zincblende phase and hexagonal wurtzite phase along the [111] growth direction in GaN xP1−x nanowires. A temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) study performed on GaN xP1−x/GaNyP1−y core/shell nanowires exhibited an S-shape dependence of the PL peaks. This suggests that at low temperature, the emission stems from N-related localized states below the conduction band edge in the shell, while at high temperature, the emission stems from band-to-band transition in the shell as well as recombination in the GaN xP1−x core