This thesis investigates different material systems and processing technology for high temperature compatible laser diodes used in volume applications within the 1.3-μm telecom wavelength window. Laser diodes built from such materials are much desired in order to eleminate the need for active temperature control needed in current systems, which significantly increases both complexity, size and cost. The structures were grown by Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) and the evaluation of materials was performed using different characterization methods such as High-Resolution X-Ray Diffraction (HR-XRD), Photoluminescence (PL), Time-Resolved Photoluminescence (TR-PL). Fabrication and evaluation of Fabry-Perot lasers with different geometries was used to check the material quality and temperature performance. A novel in-situ etching technique was developed for the use i future more advanced, buried hetrostructure lasers. The first studied materials system was AlGaInAsP/InGaAsP/InP. To handle a 5-element material with the precision required, modelling of the materials and heterostructure properties was performed. The addition of Al to the InGaAsP barrier allows better electron confinement with little change in valence band properties. The optimum aluminium content was found to be about 12%. Although the effect of Al could be identified, it was not sufficient with T0 of only 90 K only up to 60 °C. A second materials system InGaP/InAsP/ InP initially looked quite promising from a materials and quantum well design point of view but encountered severe problems with the device integration and further work was discontinued. The main effort was therefore was devoted to a third materials system: AlGaInAs/AlGaInAs/InP. This material system is not unknown but has hitherto not found a widespread application for fibre optic applications. In this work, the MOCVD growth of 1.3 μ;m quantum well laser structures was optimized and ridge waveguide laser devices with excellent temperature performance was fabricated (T0 = 97 K at 85 °C). A ridge waveguide laser was identified as suitable structure since it requires only a single epitaxial growth, thus avoiding the main problem of oxidation of Al based buried structures. The dynamic performance was excellent up to 110 °C and the device fabrication is highly reliable (lifetime >7000 h). This high yield uncooled ridge Fabry-Perot laser process has now been transferred to production and is applied in short length 10 Gb/s multimode links. In order to further improve the usefulness of the Al-containing materials in even higher performance devices needed in future applications developments towards fully buried heterostructure device geometry were also pursued. To overcome difficulty of oxidation of Al containing layers at the mesa walls an in-situ etching technique was implemented. Different chemistry approaches were investigated and the first results of lasers devices were reported. / QC 20100930

<p>Silicon carbide rectifiers are commercially available since 2001, and MESFET switches are expected to enter the market within a year. Moreover, three inch SiC wafers can be purchased nowadays without critical defects for the device performance and four inch substrate wafers are announced for the year 2005. Despite this tremendous development in SiC technology, the reliability issues like device degradation or high channel mobility still remain to be solved.</p><p>This thesis focuses on SiC surface passivation and termination, a topic which is very important for the utilisation of the full potential of this semiconductor. Three dielectrics with high dielectric constants, Al2O3, AlN and TiO2, were deposited on SiC with different techniques. The structural and electrical properties of the dielectrics were measured and the best insulating layers were then deposited on fully processed and well characterised 1.2 kV 4H SiC PiN diodes. For the best Al2O3 layers, the leakage current was reduced to half its value and the breakdown voltage was extended by 0.5 kV, reaching 1.6 kV, compared to non passivated devices.</p><p>As important as the proper choice of dielectric material is a proper surface preparation prior to deposition of the insulator. In the thesis two surface treatments were tested, a standard HF termination used in silicon technology and an exposure to UV light from a mercury lamp. The second technique is highly interesting since a substantial improvement was observed when UV light was used prior to the dielectric deposition. Moreover, UV light stabilized the surface and reduced the leakage current by a factor of 100 for SiC devices after 10 Mrad γ ray exposition. The experiments indicate also that the measured leakage currents of the order of pA are dominated by surface leakage.</p>

<p>Long-wavelength (1.3-μm) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are of great interest as low-cost, high performance light sources for fiber-optic metro and access networks. During recent years the main development effort in this field has been directed towards all epitaxial GaAs-based structures by employing novel active materials. Different active region candidates for GaAs-based 1.3-μm VCSELs such as GaInNAs/GaAs QWs, GaAsSb QWs or InAs/InGaAs QDs have been investigated. However, the difficult growth and materials properties of these systems have so far hampered any real deployment of the technology. More recently, a new variety of VCSELs have been developed at KTH as based on highly strained InGaAs QWs and negative gain cavity detuning to reach the 1.3-μm wavelength window. The great benefit of this approach is that it is fully compatible with standard materials and processing methods.</p><p>The aim of this thesis is to investigate long-wavelength (1.3-μm) VCSELs using ~1.2-μm In0.4GaAs/GaAs Multiple Quantum Wells (MQWs). A series of QW structures, DBR structures and laser structures, including VCSELs and Broad Area lasers (BALs) were grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) and characterized by various techniques: Photoluminescence (PL), high-resolution x-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM), high accuracy reflectance measurements as well as static and dynamic device characterization. The work can be divided into three parts. The first part is dedicated to the optimization and characterization of InGaAs/GaAs QWs growth for long wavelength and strong luminescence. A strong sensitivity to the detailed growth conditions, such as V/III ratio and substrate misorientation is noted. Dislocations in highly strained InGaAs QW structure and Sb as surfactant assisted in InGaAs QW growth are also discussed here. The second part is related to the AlGaAs/GaAs DBR structures. It is shown that the InGaAs VCSELs with doped bottom DBRs have significantly lower slope efficiency, output power and higher threshold current. By a direct study of buried AlGaAs/GaAs interfaces, this is suggested to be due to doping-enhanced Al-Ga hetero-interdiffusion. In the third part, singlemode, high-performance 1.3-μm VCSELs based on highly strained InGaAs QWs are demonstrated. Temperature stable singlemode performance, including mW-range output power and 10 Gbps data transmission, is obtained by an inverted surface relief technique.</p>

<p>The aim of this thesis work was to fabricate a hybrid LED using organic-inorganic ZnO materials. The goal of the project was to get an efficient white light emission from zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods active layer. Since most of the organic materials are good for hole mobility and most of the inorganic materials are good for electron mobility, it is possible to fabricate a high performance heterostructure electroluminescence device from organic-inorganic materials. This thesis work was an attempt towards fabricating such a high electroluminescence LED from hybrid materials in which polymer acts as a p-type material and ZnO acts as a n-type material. The growth mechanism of ZnO nanorods using low-temperature aqueous solution method has been studied and nanorods (NRs) growth was examined with scanning electron microscope (SEM). Optimum hole injection polymers have been studied. Finally, the fabricated device was characterized using parameter analyzer. The fabricated device worked as a diode i.e. it rectified current as expected and the desirable light emission has almost been achieved.</p>

This thesis presents the development of a selective-etch fabrication process to create sub-10 nanometre metallic gaps and the subsequent use of the gaps to study the electronics of nanocrystals and molecules. A complete picture of the success of the process required both examination by scanning electron microscopy as well as probing the current response to an applied bias at low temperature. The empty gaps were fully characterised before self-assembling 7 nm CdSe nanocrystals onto the metal with the help of linker molecules. The I-V characteristics of the empty gaps showed a reduction of the tunnelling barrier height from the expected value (~5.1 eV, the work function of Au) when the results were fitted to the Simmons tunnelling model for a metal-insulator-metal system. Results indicate that after the barrier height is surpassed, a transition from direct to field-effect (Fowler-Nordheim) tunnelling occurs. After CdSe assembly, the collected I-V characteristics of the system at 77 K showed varied results. Many devices displayed conductance peaks at low voltages comparable to the results of the shadow evaporation process for 4.2 nm nanocrystals (also documented in this thesis). Several devices revealed switching between multiples of fundamental curves, suggesting conduction through multiples of nanocrystals.

Lead halide perovskites have shown remarkable device performance in both solar cells and LEDs. Whilst the research efforts so far have been mainly focussed on device optimisation, little is known about the photophysical properties. For example, the nature of the bandgap is still debated and an indirect bandgap due to a Rashba splitting has been suggested. In this thesis, we study the early-time carrier relaxation and its impact on photoluminescence emission. We first study ultrafast carrier thermalization processes using 2D electronic spectroscopy and extract characteristic carrier thermalization times from below 10 fs to 85 fs. We then investigate the early-time photoluminescence emission during carrier cooling. We observe that the luminescence signal shows a rise over 2 picoseconds in CH3NH3PbI3 while carriers cool to the band edge. This shows that luminescence of hot carriers is slower than that of cold carriers, as is found in direct gap semiconductors. We conclude that electrons and holes show strong overlap in momentum space, despite the potential presence of a small band offset arising from a Rashba effect. Recombination and device performance of perovskites are thus better described within a direct bandgap model. We finally study carrier recombination in perovskites and the impact of photon recycling. We show that, for an internal photoluminescence quantum yield of 70%, we measure external yields as low as 15% in planar films, where light out-coupling is inefficient, but observe values as high as 57% in films on textured substrates that enhance out-coupling. We study the photo-excited carrier dynamics and use a rate equation to relate radiative and non-radiative recombination events to measured photoluminescence efficiencies. We conclude that the use of textured active layers has the ability to improve power conversion efficiencies for both LEDs and solar cells.

Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der Untersuchung von weitbandlückigen Halbleitern mittels Raman-Spektroskopie. Diese wurde vorwiegend unter Verwendung von Licht einer Wellenlänge von 325 nm im ultravioletten Spektralbereich angeregt. Damit konnten zum einen aufgrund eines erhöhten Streuquerschnittes Messungen zur Probencharakterisierung durchgeführt werden, die mit Anregung im sichtbaren Spektralbereich nicht möglich gewesen wären. Zum anderen wurden bei dieser Anregungswellenlänge auftretende Resonanzeffekte untersucht. Dabei werden zwei verschiedene Materialsysteme behandelt: zum einen Kristalle mit Wurtzitstruktur und zum anderen binäre und ternäre Sesquioxide mit Metallionen der III. Hauptgruppe. An den Kristallen mit Wurtzitstruktur wurde die Streuung des Anregungslichts mit Energie oberhalb der Bandlücke an longitudinal-optischen (LO) Phononen untersucht. Die Streuung an einzelnen LO-Phononen wird unter diesen Anregungsbedingungen von einem Prozess dominiert, der eine elastische Streuung beinhaltet, durch die die Impulserhaltung verletzt wird. Es wurde ein Modell aufgestellt, dass zwischen einer elastischen Streuung an der Oberfläche und an Punktdefekten unterscheidet, und mit Hilfe von Experimenten verifiziert. Weiterhin wurde der Einfluss von Ladungsträgern auf die Energie der LO-Phononen untersucht und es wird eine Anwendung dieser Erkenntnisse zur Charakterisierung der Oberfläche von Zinkoxid vorgestellt. An den binären Oxiden des Galliums und Indiums wurden die Energien der Phononenmoden ermittelt und die resonante Verstärkung bei der verwendeten Anregungswellenlänge untersucht. Für das Galliumoxid wurde dabei insbesondere die Anisotropie des Materials berücksichtigt. Für das Indiumoxid wird dargestellt, dass durch die resonante Anregung alle Phononenmoden beobachtet werden können, was insbesondere auch die Bestimmung der Phononenmoden von Dünnschichtproben ermöglicht. Weiterhin waren Mischkristalle des Galliumoxids Untersuchungsgegenstand, in denen das Gallium teilweise durch Indium oder Aluminium ersetzt wurde. Die Phononenenergien wurden in Abhängigkeit der Zusammensetzung ermittelt und der Einfluss von strukturellen Eigenschaften darauf sowie das Auftreten von Phasenübergängen untersucht.

The technological interest in a material depends very much on its electrical, magnetic, optical and/or mechanical properties. In carbon nanotubes the atoms form a cylindrical structure with a diameter of the order 1 nm, but the nanotubes can be up to several hundred micrometers in length. This makes carbon nanotubes a remarkable model for one-dimensional systems. A lot of efforts have been dedicated to manufacturing carbon nanotubes, which is expected to be the material for the next generation of devices. Despite all the attention that carbon nanotubes have received from the scientific community, only rather limited progress has been made in the theoretical understanding of their physical properties. In this work, we attempt to provide an understanding of the electron-phonon and electron-defect interactions in semiconducting zigzag carbon nanotubes using a tight-binding approach. The electronic energy dispersion relations are calculated by applying the zone-folding technique to the dispersion relations of graphene. A fourth-nearest-neighbour force constant model has been applied to study the vibrational modes in the carbon nanotubes. Both the electron-phonon interaction and the electron-defect interaction are formulated within the tight-binding approximation, and analyzed in terms of their quantum mechanical scattering rates. Apart from the scattering rates, their components in terms of phonon absorption, phonon emission, backscattering and forward scattering have been determined and analyzed. The scattering rates for (5,0), (7,0), (10,0), (13,0) and (25,0) carbon nanotubes at room temperature and at 10K are presented and discussed. The phonon scattering rate is dependent on the lattice temperature in the interval 0-0.17 eV. We find that backscattering and phonon emission are dominant over forward scattering and phonon absorption in most of the energy interval. However, forward scattering and phonon absorption can be comparable to backscattering and phonon emission in limited energy intervals. The phonon modes associated with each peak in the electron-phonon scattering rates have been identified, and the similarities in the phonon scattering rates between different nanotubes are discussed. The dependence of the defect scattering rate on the tube diameter is similar to that of the phonon scattering rate. Both the phonon and the defect scattering rates show strong dependence on the tube diameter (i.e., the scattering rate decreases as a function of the index of the nanotube). It is observed that the backscattering and forward scattering for electrons interacting with defects occur with same frequency at all energies, in sharp contrast to the situation for phonon scattering. It is demonstrated that the differences in the scattering rate between different tubes are mainly due to the differences in their band structures.

This thesis describes electrical measurements performed on low dimensional p-type devices, fabricated from GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. The Coulomb interaction between holes is similar to that between electrons. However, the kinetic energy is suppressed, which makes interaction effects particularly important. Holes may also be used to study band structure effects which arise from spin-orbit coupling in the valence band. The effects of Coulomb interactions in low dimensional electron systems are currently being studied extensively. Experiments presented in this thesis indicate the possible importance of Coulomb exchange interactions in both one and two dimensional hole systems (1DHSs,2DHSs). Tilted magnetic field studies of 2DHSs in the quantum Hall regime indicate that Landau levels at even filling factors will not cross. For high filling factor, this is attributed to a spin-orbit mixing effect which arises from the low symmetry ofthe system. At lower filling factor, activation-energy measurements verify that the energy gaps decrease and then increase as the field is tilted. However, the energy gap versus field dependences do not exhibit the curvature that might be expected from a perturbative anticrossing. It is speculated that the origin of this effect is a phase transition driven by the exchange interaction. Balanced arguments contrasting the relative strengths of the mixing and interactions theories are provided. The second part of this thesis describes a new method for the fabrication ofballistic 1DHSs, which exhibit clear conductance quantization. The quantization changes from even to odd multiples of e2/h as a function of the magnetic field in the plane of the heterostructure, as 'spin splitting' causes the 1D subbands to cross. Measurements of the 1D subband energy spacings are used together with the magnetic fields at which the crossings occur to calculate the in-plane g factors of the 1D subbands. These are found to increase as the number of occupied 1D subbands decreases. This enhancement of the g factor is attributed to exchange interactions; possible mixing explanations are also discussed. At higher magnetic fields, the pattern of quantization features shows that the subbands have crossed many times, and that the 1DHS can be strongly magnetized.

<p>Spin filtering properties of novel GaNAs alloys are reported in this thesis. Spin-dependent recombination (SDR) in GaNAs via a deep paramagnetic defect center is intensively studied.  By using the optical orientation photoluminescence (PL) technique, GaNAs is shown to be able to spin filter electrons injected from GaAs, which is a useful functional property for integratition with future electronic devices.  The spin filtering ability is found to degrade in narrow GaNAs quantum well (QW) structures which is attributed to (i) acceleration of band-to-band recombination competing with the SDR process and to (ii) faster electron spin relaxation in the narrow QWs.  Ga interstitial-related defect centers have been found to be responsible for the SDR process by using the optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) technique. The defects are found to be the dominant grown-in defects in GaNAs, commonly formed during both MBE and MOCVD growths.  Methods to control the concentration of the Ga interstitials by varying doping, growth parameters and post-growth treatments are also examined.</p>