Direct measurements of carrier diffusion in GaN nanorods with a designed InGaN/GaN layer-in-a-wire structure by scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) were performed at liquid-helium temperatures of 10 K. Without an applied voltage, intrinsic diffusion lengths of photo-excited carriers were measured as the diameters of the nanorods differ from 50 to 800 nm. The critical diameter of nanorods for carrier diffusion is concluded as 170 nm with a statistical approach. Photoluminescence spectra were acquired for different positions of the SNOM tip on the nanorod, corresponding to the origins of the well-defined luminescence peaks, each being related to recombination-centers. The phenomenon originated from surface oxide by direct comparison of two nanorods with similar diameters in a single map has been observed and investigated.

In this study zinc oxide nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized via a co-precipitation method and were covered by zinc sulfate using a chemical approach at a temperature of 60 degrees C forming ZnO@ZnS core-shell nanoparticles (CSNPs). In order to investigate the effect of the shell thickness on the optical and photocatalytic properties, many samples were grown with different concentration of the sulfur source. The results show that, covering ZnO with ZnS leads to form a type II band alignment system. In addition, the band gap of the ZnO@ZnS CSNPs was found less than both of the core and the shell materials. Also the emission peak intensity of the ZnO NPs changes as a result of manipulating oxygen vacancies via covering. The photocatalytic activity of the ZnO@ZnS CSNPs was invpstigated for degradation of the Congo red dye. As dye pollutants can be found in mediums with different pH, the experiments were performed at three pH values to determine the best photocatalyst for each pH. Congo red dye degradation experiments indicate that the ZnO@ZnS CSNPs act more efficiently as a photcatalyst at pH values of 4 and 7 compare to the pure ZnO NPs.

We report on an indirect optical method for the determination of glucose via the detection of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) that is generated during the glucose oxidase (GOx) catalyzed oxidation of glucose. It is based on the finding that the ultraviolet (~374 nm) and visible (~525 nm) photoluminescence of pristine zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles strongly depends on the concentration of H₂O₂ in water solution. Photoluminescence is quenched by up to 90 % at a 100 mM level of H₂O₂. The sensor constructed by immobilizing GOx on ZnO nanoparticles enabled glucose to be continuously monitored in the 10 mM to 130 mM concentration range, and the limit of detection is 10 mM. This enzymatic sensing scheme is supposed to be applicable to monitoring glucose in the food, beverage and fermentation industries. It has a wide scope in that it may be extended to numerous other substrate or enzyme activity assays based on the formation of H₂O₂, and of assays based on the consumption of H₂O₂ by peroxidases.

We report on excitonic single photon emission and biexcitonic photon bunching from an InGaN quantum dot formed on the apex of a hexagonal GaN micropyramid. An approach to suppress uncorrelated emission from the pyramid base is proposed, a metal lm is demonstrated to eectively screen background emission and thereby signicantly enhance the signal-to-background ratio of the quantum dot emission. As a result, the second order coherence function at zero time delay g(2)(0) is signicantly reduced (to g(2)(0) = 0.24, raw value) for the excitonic autocorrelation at a temperature of 12 K under continuous wave excitation, and a dominating single photon emission is demonstrated to survive up to 50 K. The deterioration of the g(2)(0)-value at elevated temperatures is well understood as the combined eect of reduced signal-to-background ratio and limited time resolution of the setup. This result underlines the great potential of site controlled pyramidal dots as sources of fast polarized single photons.

High symmetry epitaxial quantum dots (QDs) with three or more symmetry planes provide a very promising route for the generation of entangled photons for quantum information applications. The great challenge to fabricate nanoscopic high symmetry QDs is further complicated by the lack of structural characterization techniques able to resolve small symmetry breaking. In this work, we present an approach for identifying and analyzing the signatures of symmetry breaking in the optical spectra of QDs. Exciton complexes in InGaAs/AlGaAs QDs grown along the [111]B crystalline axis in inverted tetrahedral pyramids are studied by polarization resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy combined with lattice temperature dependence, excitation power dependence and temporal photon correlation measurements. By combining such a systematic experimental approach with a simple theoretical approach based on a point-group symmetry analysis of the polarized emission patterns of each exciton complex, we demonstrate that it is possible to achieve a strict and coherent identification of all the observable spectral patterns of numerous exciton complexes and a quantitative determination of the fine structure splittings of their quantum states. This analysis is found to be particularly powerful for selecting QDs with the highest degree of symmetry ( C 3 v and ##IMG## [http://ej.iop.org/images/1367-2630/17/10/103017/njp519062ieqn1.gif] $D_3h$ ) for potential applications of these QDs as polarization entangled photon sources. We exhibit the optical spectra when evolving towards asymmetrical QDs, and show the higher sensitivity of certain exciton complexes to symmetry breaking.

An equilibrium approach is used to calculate the free energy and composition distribution of InGaN/GaN quantum dot located on the InGaN/GaN pyramid. The energy balance method is adopted to predict critical conditions for quantum dot formation. We find that the formation of QD depends strongly on the size of pyramid top surface. The results can fit our experiment qualitatively.

The selected InGaAsN/GaAs T-shaped quantum wire (T-QWR) fabricated by metal organic vapor phase epitaxy has been investigated by microphotoluminescence (m-PL) and excitation-power-dependent mu-PL. The optical characteristics of one-dimensional structure were taken at low-temperature (4 K) and room temperature (RT) to clarify the intersection of two familiar quantum wells (QWs) in the [001] and [110] directions, named QW1 and QW2, respectively. For the excitation-power-dependent measurement, the intensity of the excitation source was used in the range of 0.001I(0) to I-0. The result shows that all of emissions related to QW1 and QWR peaks have a nonsymmetric line shape as evidenced by the tailing on the lower-energy side. All peaks shift to higher-energy side (blueshift) with the increase of the excitation power intensity. The blueshift and the low-energy tailing of PL peaks are attributed to the alloying effect. However, the emission peak related to QWR region shows a larger blueshift rate than that of QW1 on increasing of the excitation power intensity. This is an anomalous characteristic for the low-dimensional structure, affected by the large fluctuation state in the QWR region. This fluctuation state is combined of both edges of QWs (QW1 and QW2).

n/a

Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have been demonstrated viable for the emission of single photons on demand during the past decade. However, the synthesis of QDs emitting photons with pre-defined and deterministic polarization vectors has proven arduous. The access of linearly-polarized photons is essential for various applications. In this report, a novel concept to directly generate linearly-polarized photons is presented. This concept is based on InGaN QDs grown on top of elongated GaN hexagonal pyramids, by which predefined orientations herald the polarization vectors of the emitted photons from the QDs. This growth scheme should allow fabrication of ultracompact arrays of photon emitters, with a controlled polarization direction for each individual QD emitter.

Indium segregation in a narrow InGaN single quantum well creates quantum dot (QD) like exciton localization centers. Cross-section transmission electron microscopy reveals varying shapes and lateral sizes in the range ∼1–5 nm of the QD-like features, while scanning near field optical microscopy demonstrates a highly inhomogeneous spatial distribution of optically active individual localization centers. Microphotoluminescence spectroscopy confirms the spectrally inhomogeneous distribution of localization centers, in which the exciton and the biexciton related emissions from single centers of varying geometry could be identified by means of excitation power dependencies. Interestingly, the biexciton binding energy (Ebxx) was found to vary from center to center, between 3 to −22 meV, in correlation with the exciton emission energy. Negative binding energies are only justified by a three-dimensional quantum confinement, which confirms QD-like properties of the localization centers. The observed energy correlation is proposed to be understood as variations of the lateral extension of the confinement potential, which would yield smaller values of Ebxx for reduced lateral extension and higher exciton emission energy. The proposed relation between lateral extension and Ebxx is further supported by the exciton and the biexciton recombination lifetimes of a single QD, which suggest a lateral extension of merely ∼3 nm for a QD with strongly negative Ebxx = −15.5 meV.