824 research outputs found
1.55 μm direct bandgap electroluminescence from strained n-Ge quantum wells grown on Si substrates
Electroluminescence from strained n-Ge quantum well light emitting diodes grown on a silicon substrate are demonstrated at room temperature. Electroluminescence characterisation demonstrates two peaks around 1.55 μm and 1.8 μm, which correspond to recombination between the direct and indirect transitions, respectively. The emission wavelength can be tuned by around 4% through changing the current density through the device. The devices have potential applications in the fields of optical interconnects, gas sensing, and healthcare
Spin and energy relaxation in germanium studied by spin-polarized direct-gap photoluminescence
Spin orientation of photoexcited carriers and their energy relaxation is
investigated in bulk Ge by studying spin-polarized recombination across the
direct band gap. The control over parameters such as doping and lattice
temperature is shown to yield high polarization degree, namely larger than 40%,
as well as a fine-tuning of the angular momentum of the emitted light with a
complete reversal between right- and left-handed circular polarization. By
combining the measurement of the optical polarization state of band-edge
luminescence and Monte Carlo simulations of carrier dynamics, we show that
these very rich and complex phenomena are the result of the electron
thermalization and cooling in the multi-valley conduction band of Ge. The
circular polarization of the direct-gap radiative recombination is indeed
affected by energy relaxation of hot electrons via the X valleys and the
Coulomb interaction with extrinsic carriers. Finally, thermal activation of
unpolarized L valley electrons accounts for the luminescence depolarization in
the high temperature regime
Si/SiGe bound-to-continuum quantum cascade emitters
Si/SiGe bound-to-continuum quantum cascade emitters designed
by self-consistent 6-band k.p modeling and grown by low energy
plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition are presented
demonstrating electroluminescence between 1.5 and 3 THz. The
electroluminescence is Stark shifted by an electric field and
demonstrates polarized emission consistent with the design.
Transmission electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction are also
presented to characterize the thick heterolayer structure
Mid-infrared intersubband absorption from p-Ge quantum wells grown on Si substrates
Mid-infrared intersubband absorption from p-Ge quantum wells with Si0.5Ge0.5 barriers grown on a Si substrate is demonstrated from 6 to 9 μm wavelength at room temperature and can be tuned by adjusting the quantum well thickness. Fourier transform infra-red transmission and photoluminescence measurements demonstrate clear absorption peaks corresponding to intersubband transitions among confined hole states. The work indicates an approach that will allow quantum well intersubband photodetectors to be realized on Si substrates in the important atmospheric transmission window of 8–13 μm
Mid-Infrared Intersubband Absorption from P-Ge Quantum Wells on Si
Mid-infrared intersubband absorption from p-Ge quantum wells with Si0.5Ge0.5 barriers grown on a Si substrate is demonstrated from 6 to 9 μm wavelength at room temperature and can be tuned by adjusting the quantum well thickness. Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy measurements demonstrate clear absorption peaks corresponding to intersubband transitions among confined hole states. The work indicates an approach that will allow quantum well intersubband photodetectors to be realized on Si substrates in the important atmospheric transmission window of 8–13 μm
Thermoelectric cross-plane properties on p- and n-Ge/SixGe1-x superlattices
Silicon and germanium materials have demonstrated an increasing attraction for energy harvesting, due to their sustainability and integrability with complementary metal oxide semiconductor and micro-electro-mechanical-system technology. The thermoelectric efficiencies for these materials, however, are very poor at room temperature and so it is necessary to engineer them in order to compete with telluride based materials, which have demonstrated at room temperature the highest performances in literature [1].
Micro-fabricated devices consisting of mesa structures with integrated heaters, thermometers and Ohmic contacts were used to extract the cross-plane values of the Seebeck coefficient and the thermal conductivity from p- and n-Ge/SixGe1-x superlattices. A second device consisting in a modified circular transfer line method structure was used to extract the electrical conductivity of the materials. A range of p-Ge/Si0.5Ge0.5 superlattices with different doping levels was investigated in detail to determine the role of the doping density in dictating the thermoelectric properties. A second set of n-Ge/Si0.3Ge0.7 superlattices was fabricated to study the impact that quantum well thickness might have on the two thermoelectric figures of merit, and also to demonstrate a further reduction of the thermal conductivity by scattering phonons at different wavelengths. This technique has demonstrated to lower the thermal conductivity by a 25% by adding different barrier thicknesses per period
Spin-dependent direct gap emission in tensile-strained Ge films on Si substrates
The circular polarization of direct gap emission of Ge is studied in
optically-excited tensile-strained Ge-on-Si heterostructures as a function of
doping and temperature. Owing to the spin-dependent optical selection rules,
the radiative recombinations involving strain-split light (cG-LH) and heavy
hole (cG-HH) bands are unambiguously resolved. The fundamental cG-LH transition
is found to have a low temperature circular polarization degree of about 85%
despite an off-resonance excitation of more than 300 meV. By photoluminescence
(PL) measurements and tight binding calculations we show that this
exceptionally high value is due to the peculiar energy dependence of the
optically-induced electron spin population. Finally, our observation of the
direct gap doublet clarifies that the light hole contribution, previously
considered to be negligible, can dominate the room temperature PL even at low
tensile strain values of about 0.2%
miR-SEA: miRNA Seed Extension based Aligner Pipeline for NGS Expression Level Extraction
The advent of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology has enabled a new major approach for micro RNAs (miRNAs) expression profiling through the so called RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq).
Different tools have been developed in the last years in order to detect and quantify miRNAs, especially in pathological samples, starting from the big amount of data deriving from RNA sequencing. These tools, usually relying on general purpose alignment algorithms, are however characterized by different sensitivity and accuracy levels and in the most of the cases provide not overlapping predictions. To overcome these limitations we propose a novel pipeline for miRNAs detection and quantification in RNA-Seq sample, miRNA Seed Extension Aligner (miR-SEA), based on an experimental evidence concerning miRNAs structure. The proposed pipeline was tested on three Colorectal Cancer (CRC) RNA-Seq samples and the obtained results compared with those provided by two well-known miRNAs detection tools showing good ability in performing detection and quantification more adherent to miRNAs structure
- …