We have studied the effects of AlGaAs energy barriers surrounding self-assembled InAs quantum dots in a GaAs matrix on the properties of solar cells made with multiple quantum dot layers in the active region of a photodiode. We have compared the fenced dot samples with conventional InAs/ GaAs quantum dot solar cells and with GaAs reference cells. We have found that, contrary to theoretical predictions, the AlGaAs fence layers do not enhance the transport properties of photogenerated carriers but instead suppress the extraction of the carriers excited in the dots by light with wavelengths longer than the cutoff wavelength of the GaAs matrix material. Both the standard quantum dots and the fenced dots were found to give solar cell performance comparable to the GaAs reference cells for certain active region thicknesses but neither showed enhancement due to the longer wavelength absorption or improved carrier transport.
With the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) flux concentrator, we have been able to increase the operating frequency of small magnetic sensors above the region where 1/f noise dominates. The device accomplished this by modulating the field via the oscillatory motion of flux concentrators on MEMS flaps. Electrostatic comb drives were used to drive the MEMS flaps. We have demonstrated an increase in the signal to noise ratio at 1 Hz, that the power signal correctly depends on V4 where V is the amplitude of the voltage energizing the comb drives, and that the signal increases dramatically with vacuum packaging.
We applied a recent electromagnetic model to design the resonator-quantum well infrared photodetector (R-QWIP). In this design, we used an array of rings as diffractive elements to diffract normal incident light into parallel propagation and used the pixel volume as a resonator to intensify the diffracted light. With a proper pixel size, the detector resonates at certain optical wavelengths and thus yields a high quantum efficiency (QE). To test this detector concept, we fabricated a number of R-QWIPs with different quantum well materials and detector geometries. The experimental result agrees satisfactorily with the prediction, and the highest QE achieved is 71%.
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