Vertical cavity surface emitting laser action of an all monolithic ZnO-based microcavity

We report on room temperature laser action of an all monolithic ZnO-based vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) under optical pumping. The VCSEL structure consists of a 2{\lambda} microcavity containing 8 ZnO/Zn(0.92)Mg(0.08)O quantum wells embedded in epitaxially grown Zn(0.92)Mg(0.08)O/Zn(0.65)Mg(0.35)O distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). As a prerequisite, design and growth of high reflectivity DBRs based on ZnO and (Zn,Mg)O for optical devices operating in the ultraviolet and blue-green spectral range are discussed.Comment: Copyright (2011) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Appl. Phys. Lett. 98, 011101 (2011) and may be found at http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab/v98/i1/p011101_s

Poynting's theorem and energy conservation in the propagation of light in bounded media

Starting from the Maxwell-Lorentz equations, Poynting's theorem is reconsidered. The energy flux vector is introduced as S_e=(E x B)/mu_0 instead of E x H, because only by this choice the energy dissipation can be related to the balance of the kinetic energy of the matter subsystem. Conservation of the total energy as the sum of kinetic and electromagnetic energy follows. In our discussion, media and their microscopic nature are represented exactly by their susceptibility functions, which do not necessarily have to be known. On this footing, it can be shown that energy conservation in the propagation of light through bounded media is ensured by Maxwell's boundary conditions alone, even for some frequently used approximations. This is demonstrated for approaches using additional boundary conditions and the dielectric approximation in detail, the latter of which suspected to violate energy conservation for decades.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX4, changes: complete rewrit

A nanometer-scale optical electrometer

Self-assembled semiconductor quantum dots show remarkable optical and spin coherence properties, which have lead to a concerted research effort examining their potential as a quantum bit for quantum information science1-6. Here, we present an alternative application for such devices, exploiting recent achievements of charge occupation control and the spectral tunability of the optical emission of quantum dots by electric fields7 to demonstrate high-sensitivity electric field measurement. In contrast to existing nanometer-scale electric field sensors, such as single electron transistors8-11 and mechanical resonators12,13, our approach relies on homodyning light resonantly Rayleigh scattered from a quantum dot transition with the excitation laser and phase sensitive lock-in detection. This offers both static and transient field detection ability with high bandwidth operation and near unity quantum efficiency. Our theoretical estimation of the static field sensitivity for typical parameters, 0.5 V/m/ \surd Hz, compares favorably to the theoretical limit for single electron transistor-based electrometers. The sensitivity level of 5 V/m/ \surd Hz we report in this work, which corresponds to 6.4 * 10-6 e/ \surd Hz at a distance of 12 nm, is worse than this theoretical estimate, yet higher than any other result attained at 4.2 K or higher operation temperature

Persistent Current of Free Electrons in the Plane

Predictions of Akkermans et al. are essentially changed when the Krein spectral displacement operator is regularized by means of zeta function. Instead of piecewise constant persistent current of free electrons on the plane one has a current which varies linearly with the flux and is antisymmetric with regard to all time preserving values of $\alpha$ including $1/2$. Different self-adjoint extensions of the problem and role of the resonance are discussed.Comment: (Comment on "Relation between Persistent Currents and the Scattering Matrix", Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 66}, 76 (1991)) plain latex, 4pp., IPNO/TH 94-2

Optical Properties of Crystals with Spatial Dispersion: Josephson Plasma Resonance in Layered Superconductors

We derive the transmission coefficient, $T(\omega)$, for grazing incidence of crystals with spatial dispersion accounting for the excitation of multiple modes with different wave vectors ${\bf k}$ for a given frequency $\omega$. The generalization of the Fresnel formulas contains the refraction indices of these modes as determined by the dielectric function $\epsilon(\omega,{\bf k})$. Near frequencies $\omega_e$, where the group velocity vanishes, $T(\omega)$ depends also on an additional parameter determined by the crystal microstructure. The transmission $T$ is significantly suppressed, if one of the excited modes is decaying into the crystal. We derive these features microscopically for the Josephson plasma resonance in layered superconductors.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, epl.cls style file, minor change

Impact of heavy hole-light hole coupling on optical selection rules in GaAs quantum dots

We report strong heavy hole-light mixing in GaAs quantum dots grown by droplet epitaxy. Using the neutral and charged exciton emission as a monitor we observe the direct consequence of quantum dot symmetry reduction in this strain free system. By fitting the polar diagram of the emission with simple analytical expressions obtained from k$\cdot$p theory we are able to extract the mixing that arises from the heavy-light hole coupling due to the geometrical asymmetry of the quantum dot.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Cross-sectional TEM preparation of hybrid inorganic/organic materials systems by ultramicrotomy

Preparation of hybrid inorganic-organic systems (HIOS) for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in cross sectional view is the key for understanding the interfacial structure. Strikingly different materials properties like hardness, cleavability and heat sensitivity limit the number of applicable preparation strategies. Successful preparation of a HIOS system combining ZnO and para-sexiphenyl (6P) is realized by ultramicrotomy. It is shown that the alignment of the cutting plane with respect to the (0001) cleavage plane of ZnO plays a decisive role for successful preparation of extended TEM lamellae and the preservation of the HIOS structure. In particular, for (0001) oriented ZnO substrates the optimum cut direction is parallel to the HIOS interface. In cross-sectional high-resolution TEM images (100) lattice planes of 6P are observed proving the appropriate preparation strategy.Peer Reviewe

Coherently tunable third-order nonlinearity in a nanojunction

A possibility of tuning the phase of the third-order Kerr-type nonlinear susceptibility in a system consisting of two interacting metal nanospheres and a nonlinearly polarizable molecule is investigated theoretically and numerically. It is shown that by varying the relative inter-sphere separation, it is possible to tune the phase of the effective nonlinear susceptibility \chi^{(3)}(\omega;\omega,\omega,-\omega)$in the whole range from 0 to$2\pi$.Comment: 10 pages 5 figure