New Mechanism for Electronic Energy Relaxation in Nanocrystals

The low-frequency vibrational spectrum of an isolated nanometer-scale solid differs dramatically from that of a bulk crystal, causing the decay of a localized electronic state by phonon emission to be inhibited. We show, however, that an electron can also interact with the rigid translational motion of a nanocrystal. The form of the coupling is dictated by the equivalence principle and is independent of the ordinary electron-phonon interaction. We calculate the rate of nonradiative energy relaxation provided by this mechanism and establish its experimental observability.Comment: 4 pages, Submitted to Physical Review

AlGaAs/GaAs Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors

In this article, we present an overview of a focal plane array (FPA) with 640 × 512 pixels based on the AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP). The physical principles of the QWIP operation and their parameters for the spectral range of 8–10 μm have been discussed. The technology of the manufacturing FPA based on the QWIP structures with the pixels 384 × 288 and 640 × 512 has been demonstrated. The parameters of the manufactured 640 × 512 FPA with a step of 20 μm have been given. At the operating temperature of 72 K, the temperature resolution of QWIP focal plane arrays is less than 35 mK. The number of defective elements in the matrix does not exceed 0.5%. The stability and uniformity of the FPA have been demonstrated

Driving force for the proper ferroelastic phase transitions induced by cation exchange

It is shown that the internal pressure may be represented as the driving force for the proper ferroelastic phase transitions induced by cation exchange. It has been found that the internal stress tensor, generated by the cation exchange, is of a more complicated nature than the tensor of the external stress. This difference comes from a specific coupling of the substituting cations with local, microscopic displacements of the neighbouring atoms inside the unit cell. It becomes evident why in a number of experiments a significant difference in the action of internal and external pressures on the crystal structure is observed and, also, why the internal pressure causes a greater anisotropy than the external one. An equation has been obtained, with the help of which it appears possible to predict the internal pressure of the proper monoclinic-triclinic ferroelastic phase transition induced by cation exchange if the initial effective elastic moduli are known