A comprehensive framework for designing a micro-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) front-end is presented. Key radio frequency (RF) engineering principles are established to enable efficient excitation and detection of NMR signals. This foundation aims to guide the optimal design of novel handheld NMR devices operating with magnetic fields (B0) below 0.5 Tesla and RF frequencies under 30 MHz. To address the complexities of signal-to-noise ratio optimization in this regime, a specialized metric called the coil performance factor (CPF) is introduced, emphasizing the role of coil design. Through systematic optimization under realistic constraints, an optimal coil configuration maximizing the CPF is identified. This design, with three turns, a coil width of 0.22 mm, and a coil spacing of 0.15 mm, achieves an optimal balance between magnetic field strength, homogeneity, and noise. This work serves as a valuable resource for engineers developing optimized coil designs and RF solutions for handheld NMR devices, providing clear explanations of essential concepts and a practical design methodology.

Solution-processable semiconductors with antiferromagnetic (AFM) order are attractive for future spintronics and information storage technology. Halide perovskites containing magnetic ions have emerged as multifunctional materials, demonstrating a cross-link between structural, optical, electrical, and magnetic properties. However, stable optoelectronic halide perovskites that are antiferromagnetic remain sparse, and the critical design rules to optimize magnetic coupling still must be developed. Here, we combine the complementary magnetometry and electron-spin-resonance experiments, together with first-principles calculations to study the antiferromagnetic coupling in stable Cs-2(Ag:Na)FeCl6 bulk semiconductor alloys grown by the hydrothermal method. We show the importance of nonmagnetic monovalence ions at the B-I site (Na/Ag) in facilitating the superexchange interaction via orbital hybridization, offering the tunability of the Curie-Weiss parameters between -27 and -210 K, with a potential to promote magnetic frustration via alloying the nonmagnetic B-I site (Ag:Na ratio). Combining our experimental evidence with first-principles calculations, we draw a cohesive picture of the material design for B-site-ordered antiferromagnetic halide double perovskites.

A common way of determining the majority charge carriers of pristine and doped semiconducting polymers is to measure the sign of the Seebeck coefficient. However, a polarity change of the Seebeck coefficient has recently been observed to occur in highly doped polymers. Here, it is shown that the Seebeck coefficient inversion is the result of the density of states filling and opening of a hard Coulomb gap around the Fermi energy at high doping levels. Electrochemical n-doping is used to induce high carrier density (>1 charge/monomer) in the model system poly(benzimidazobenzophenanthroline) (BBL). By combining conductivity and Seebeck coefficient measurements with in situ electron paramagnetic resonance, UV-vis-NIR, Raman spectroelectrochemistry, density functional theory calculations, and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, the formation of multiply charged species and the opening of a hard Coulomb gap in the density of states, which is responsible for the Seebeck coefficient inversion and drop in electrical conductivity, are uncovered. The findings provide a simple picture that clarifies the roles of energetic disorder and Coulomb interactions in highly doped polymers and have implications for the molecular design of next-generation conjugated polymers.

The ultimate goal for singlet fission is that each photo-excited singlet exciton, S1, will result in two triplet excitons with unity yield. However, the singlet fission is now recognized to be complicated, involving bright/dark excited states of different spin multiplicity. Identifying the role of such states is vital to optimize singlet fission yield but difficult due to their elusive spectral signature. Here, we develop an experimental protocol based on a refined magneto-optical probe to access the fast time evolution of various excited states. In diphenylhexatriene crystal, the S1 is found to undergo two competing processes?to form one of the two dark triplet pair intermediates having different exchange energies or to form a bright state, Sx, exhibiting excimer-like delayed photoluminescence. Our result provides a clear picture of a competition event in singlet fission, which is beneficial for the development and tailoring of singlet fission materials with high yield.

Low-bandgap CH3NH3(PbxSn1–x)I3 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) hybrid perovskites (e.g., ≈1.5–1.1 eV) demonstrating high surface coverage and superior optoelectronic properties are fabricated. State-of-the-art photovoltaic (PV) performance is reported with power conversion efficiencies approaching 10% in planar heterojunction architecture with small (<450 meV) energy loss compared to the bandgap and high (>100 cm2 V−1s−1) intrinsic carrier mobilities.

Semiconductor quantum-dot (QD) structures are promising for spintronic applications owing to strong quenching of spin relaxation processes promoted by carrier and excitons motions. Unfortunately, spin injection efficiency in such nanostructures remains very low and the exact physical mechanism for the spin loss is still not fully understood. Here, we show that exciton spin injection in self-assembled InAs/GaAs QDs and quantum-dot molecular structures (QMSs) is dominated by localized excitons confined within the QD-like regions of the wetting layer (WL) and GaAs barrier layer immediately surrounding QDs and QMSs that in fact lack the commonly believed 2D and 3D character with an extended wavefunction. We identify the microscopic origin of the observed severe spin loss during spin injection as being due to a sizable anisotropic exchange interaction (AEI) of the localized excitons in the WL and GaAs barrier layer, which has so far been overlooked. We find that the AEI of the injected excitons and thus the efficiency of the spin injection processes are correlated with the overall geometric symmetry of the QMSs, as the latter largely defines the anisotropy of the confinement potential of the localized excitons in the surrounding WL and GaAs barrier. These results pave the way for a better understanding of spin injection processes and the microscopic origin of spin loss in QD structures, which in turn provides a useful guideline to significantly improve spin injection efficiency by optimizing the lateral arrangement of the QMSs thereby overcoming a major bottleneck in spintronic device applications utilizing semiconductor QDs.

Fine-structure splitting (FSS) of excitons in semiconductor nanostructures is a key parameter that has significant implications in photon entanglement and polarization conversion between electron spins and photons, relevant to quantum information technology and spintronics. Here, we investigate exciton FSS in self-organized lateral InAs/GaAs quantum-dot molecular structures (QMSs) including laterally aligned double quantum dots (DQDs), quantum-dot clusters (QCs), and quantum rings (QRs), by employing polarization-resolved microphotoluminescence (μPL) spectroscopy. We find a clear trend in FSS between the studied QMSs depending on their geometric arrangements, from a large FSS in the DQDs to a smaller FSS in the QCs and QRs. This trend is accompanied by a corresponding difference in the optical polarization directions of the excitons between these QMSs, namely, the bright-exciton lines are linearly polarized preferably along or perpendicular to the [11̅0] crystallographic axis in the DQDs that also defines the alignment direction of the two constituting QDs, whereas in the QCs and QRs, the polarization directions are randomly oriented. We attribute the observed trend in the FSS to a significant reduction of the asymmetry in the lateral confinement potential of the excitons in the QRs and QCs as compared with the DQDs, as a result of a compensation between the effects of lateral shape anisotropy and piezoelectric field. Our work demonstrates that FSS strongly depends on the geometric arrangements of the QMSs, which effectively tune the degree of the compensation effects and are capable of reducing FSS even in a strained QD system to a limit similar to strain-free QDs. This approach provides a pathway in obtaining high-symmetry quantum emitters desirable for realizing photon entanglement and spintronic devices based on such nanostructures, utilizing an uninterrupted epitaxial growth procedure without special requirements for lattice-matched materials combinations, specific substrate orientations, and nanolithography.

We demonstrate a general approach via spin engineering that is capable of not only deactivating defect-mediated efficient non-radiative carrier recombination channels in a semiconductor that are harmful to photonic and photovoltaic device performance, but also adding new room-temperature (RT) spin functionalities that are desirable for future spintronics and spin-photonics but so far unachievable otherwise. This approach exploits the Pauli Exclusion Principle that prohibits occupation of a non-degenerate defect level by two spin-parallel electrons, thereby providing spin blockade of carrier recombination via the defect level. The success of the approach is demonstrated in the dilute nitride of Ga(In)NAs, which holds promises for low-cost, highly efficient lasers for fiber-optic communications as well as for multi-band and multi-junction solar cell applications. First we identify that Ga_i self-interstitials and their complexes are the most common grown-in defects found in Ga(In)NAs grown by both molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD). They provide a dominant non-radiative shunt path for non-equilibrium carriers, leading to low efficiencies of light-emitting and photon-charge carrier conversion. Spin blockade is shown to lead to a giant enhancement by up to 800% in light emission intensity at RT.Furthermore we show that via spin engineering these seemingly harmful defects can be turned into advantages by adding unconventional defect-enabled spin functionalities that are highly effective at RT, including some of the fundamental building blocks essential for future spintronics. We demonstrate efficient defect-engineered spin filtering in Ga(In)NAs, which is capable of generating a record-high degree (> 40%) of electron spin polarization at RT [Nature Materials 8, 198 (2009), Phys. Rev. B 89, 195412 (2014)]. We also provide the first experimental demonstration of an efficient RT spin amplifier based on defect engineered Ga(In)NAs with a spin gain up to 2700% [Adv. Materials 25, 738 (2013)]. Such a spin amplifier is shown to be capable of amplifying a fast-modulating input spin signal while truthfully maintaining its time variation of the spin-encoded information [7]. By taking advantage of the spin amplification effect, we show that Ga(In)NAs can be employed as efficient RT spin detectors, with spin detection efficiency well exceeding 100% [8,9]. By combining the spin-filtering effect and hyperfine coupling, we further achieve the first realization of RT nuclear spin hyperpolarization in semiconductors via conduction electrons [Nature Communications. 4, 1751 (2013)], relevant to nuclear spin qubits. We believe that such defect-enabled spin functionalities could potentially provide an attractive, alternative solution to the current and important issues on RT spin injection, spin amplification and spin detection in semiconductors for future spintronics.

We investigate ensemble electron spin dephasing in self-assembled InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) of different lateral sizes by employing optical Hanle measurements. Using low excitation power, we are able to obtain a spin dephasing time T-2* (in the order of ns) of the resident electron after recombination of negative trions in the QDs. We show that T-2* is determined by the hyperfine field arising from the frozen fluctuation of nuclear spins, which scales with the size of QDs following the Merkulov-Efros-Rosen model. This scaling no longer holds in large QDs, most likely due to a breakdown in the lateral electron confinement. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.