Search results for "electronics"
showing 10 items of 4340 documents
Detailed balance analysis of area de-coupled double tandem photovoltaic modules
2015
Published version of an article in the journal: Applied Physics Letters. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4906602 This paper describes how layers of area de-coupled top and bottom cells in photovoltaic tandem modules can increase the efficiency of two-terminal tandem devices. The point of the area de-coupling is to allow the number of top cells to differ from the number of bottom cells. Within each of the layers, the cells can be horizontally series-connected and the layers can then be currentor voltage-matched with each other in a tandem module. Using detailed balance modeling, it is shown that two-terminal tandem modules of this type can achieve the same t…
Blistering mechanisms of atomic-layer-deposited AlN and Al2O3 films
2017
Blistering of protective, structural, and functional coatings is a reliability risk pestering films ranging from elemental to ceramic ones. The driving force behind blistering comes from either excess hydrogen at the film-substrate interface or stress-driven buckling. Contrary to the stress-driven mechanism, the hydrogen-initiated one is poorly understood. Recently, it was shown that in the bulk Al-Al2O3 system, the blistering is preceded by the formation of nano-sized cavities on the substrate. The stress-and hydrogen-driven mechanisms in atomic-layer-deposited (ALD) films are explored here. We clarify issues in the hydrogen-related mechanism via high-resolution microscopy and show that at…
Antenna-coupled spintronic terahertz emitters driven by a 1550 nm femtosecond laser oscillator
2019
We demonstrate antenna-coupled spintronic terahertz (THz) emitters excited by 1550 nm, 90 fs laser pulses. Antennas are employed to optimize THz outcoupling and frequency coverage of ferromagnetic/nonmagnetic metallic spintronic structures. We directly compare the antenna-coupled devices to those without antennas. Using a 200 μm H-dipole antenna and an ErAs:InGaAs photoconductive receiver, we obtain a 2.42-fold larger THz peak-peak signal, a bandwidth of 4.5 THz, and an increase in the peak dynamic range (DNR) from 53 dB to 65 dB. A 25 μm slotline antenna offered 5 dB larger peak DNR and a bandwidth of 5 THz. For all measurements, we use a comparatively low laser power of 45 mW from a comme…
Three-dimensional subnanoscale imaging of unit cell doubling due to octahedral tilting and cation modulation in strained perovskite thin films
2019
Determining the three-dimensional (3D) crystallography of a material with subnanometer resolution is essential to understanding strain effects in epitaxial thin films. A scanning transmission electron microscopy imaging technique is demonstrated that visualizes the presence and strength of atomic movements leading to a period doubling of the unit cell along the beam direction, using the intensity in an extra Laue zone ring in the back focal plane recorded using a pixelated detector method. This method is used together with conventional atomic resolution imaging in the plane perpendicular to the beam direction to gain information about the 3D crystal structure in an epitaxial thin film of La…
Flat supercontinuum generation pumped by amplified noise-like pulses from a figure-eight erbium-doped fiber laser
2017
The conditions to obtain noise-like pulses (NLPs) from a figure-eight fiber laser (F8L) and their application for supercontinuum (SC) generation in the anomalous dispersion regime are reported. The F8L is designed to remove the undesired low-intensity background radiation from pulse emission, generating NLPs with a 3 dB spectral bandwidth of 17.43 nm at the fundamental repetition frequency of 0.8 MHz. After amplification, NLPs reach a maximum average power of 9.2 mW and 123.32 nm spectral bandwidth. By controlling the amplifier pump power, flat SC generation is demonstrated through both a 800 m long spool of SMF-28 fiber and a piece of 5 m long highly nonlinear optical fiber. The results de…
Thermal characteristics of silicon nitride membranes at sub-Kelvin temperatures
1998
We have performed calorimetric measurements on 200 nm thin silicon nitride membranes at temperatures from 0.07 to 1 K. Besides full windows, membranes cut into a thermally isolating suspended bridge geometry were investigated. Based on dc and ac measurements employing normal-metal/insulator/superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions both as a thermometer and a heater, we report on heat transport and thermal relaxation in silicon nitride films. The bridge structure improves thermal isolation and, consequently, energy sensitivity by two orders of magnitude over those of the full membrane with the same size, and makes such a structure very attractive for bolometric and microrefrigeration applicatio…
Characterization of soft breakdown in thin oxide NMOSFETs based on the analysis of the substrate current
2001
We have investigated the properties of soft breakdown (SBO) in thin oxide (4.5 nm) nMOSFETs with measurements of the gate and substrate leakage currents using the carrier separation technique. We have observed that, at lower gate voltages, the level of the substrate current exhibits a plateau. We propose that the observed plateau is due to the Shockley-Hall-Read (SHR) generation of hole-electron pairs in the space charge region and at the Si-SiO/sub 2/ interface. At higher voltages, the substrate current steeply increases with voltage, due to a tunneling mechanism, trap-assisted or due to a localized effective thinning of the oxide, from the substrate valence band to the gate conduction ban…
Compact Mach-Zehnder acousto-optic modulator
2006
The authors demonstrate a compact optical waveguide modulator based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer driven by surface acoustic waves. The modulator was monolithically fabricated on GaAs with an active region length of approximately 15μm. It yields peak-to-peak modulation exceeding 90% of the average transmission and operation in the gigahertz frequency range.
Flashlamp-pumped Ti:Sapphire laser: Influence of the rod figure of merit and Ti3+ concentration
1994
A flashlamp-pumped Ti:Sapphire laser is tested with rods of various Figures of Merit (FOM from 100 to 800) and Ti3+ concentrations (0.1 and 0.15% by weight) and we measured the laser energy dependence as a function of these parameters. Output energies above 2 J are obtained without dye converter, leading to a 1.8% overall efficiency and a 2.2% slope efficiency. The effects of pump pulse duration by variation of the discharge capacitance are also monitored.
Thermo-electric detection of waveguided surface plasmon propagation
2011
International audience; The thermo-electric detection of a waveguided surface plasmon traveling along one electrode of an in-plane integrated thermocouple is demonstrated. By using a particular design of the thermocouple, the thermo-electric signal due to the losses of the plasmon mode can be separated from the non-resonant heating of the waveguide. The thermo-electric signal associated with the plasmon propagation is proportional to the power coupled into the waveguided mode and exhibits a maximum at a distance from the excitation site depending on both the heat transfer coefficient of the system and the plasmon mode damping distance.