Related papers: Si nanoparticle interfaces in Si/SiO2 solar cell m…
A 2-D photonic crystal was integrated experimentally into a thin-film crystalline-silicon solar cell of 1-{\mu}m thickness, after numerical optimization maximizing light absorption in the active material. The photonic crystal boosted the…
Large-volume deployment of Si-based Seebeck generators can be foreseen only if polycrystalline rather than single crystalline materials can be actually used. The aim of this study was therefore to verify whether polycrystalline Si films…
Surface anti-reflectance and passivation properties of the Al2O3 films deposited on crystalline Si substrates by atomic layer deposition are investigated. Textured Si with 100 nm Al2O3 shows a very low average reflectance of ~2.8 %. Both…
By means of ab-initio calculations we investigate the optical properties of pure a-SiN$_x$ samples, with $x \in [0.4, 1.8]$, and samples embedding silicon nanoclusters (NCs) of diameter $0.5 \leq d \leq 1.0$ nm. In the pure samples the…
Nanoparticle (NP) arrays of noble metals strongly absorb light in the visible to infrared wavelengths through resonant interactions between the incident electromagnetic field and the metal's free electron plasma. Such plasmonic interfaces…
Near-fields around nanophotonic structures and waveguides can be used to optically interface particles ranging from atoms and molecules to microscopic biological and synthetic particles. Due to the strong, non-linear dependence of the…
A tandem GaAsP/SiGe solar cell has been developed employing group-IV reverse buffer layers grown on silicon substrates with a subsurface porous layer. Reverse buffer layers facilitate a reduction in the threading dislocation density with…
Topological insulators are attracting considerable interest due to their potential for technological applications and as platforms for exploring wide-ranging fundamental science questions. In order to exploit, fine-tune, control and…
We report that annealing in low-oxygen-partial-pressure (low-p$_{\rm O2}$) ambient is effective in reducing the interface state density (D$_{\rm IT}$) at a SiC (0001)/SiO$_{\rm 2}$ interface near the conduction band edge (E$_{\rm C}$) of…
We present a theoretical study of Ge-core/Si-shell nanocrystals in a wide bandgap matrix and compare the results with experimental data obtained from the samples prepared by co-sputtering. The empirical tight-binding technique allows us to…
The effect of temperature controlled annealing on the confined valence electron states in CdSe nanocrystal arrays, deposited as thin films, was studied using two-dimensional angular correlation of annihilation radiation (2D-ACAR). A…
The results of XPS core-level and valence band measurements, photoluminescence spectra of a-SiO2 implanted by Zn-ions (E=30 keV, D=1*1017 cm^-2) and Density Functional Theory calculations of electronic structure as well as formation…
Topological insulators (TIs) are novel materials that manifest spin-polarized Dirac states on their surfaces or at interfaces made with conventional matter. We have measured the electron kinetics of bulk doped TI Bi$_2$Se$_3$ with angle…
Si/SiGe heterostructures are of high interest for high mobility transistor and qubit applications, specifically for operations below 4.2 K. In order to optimize parameters such as charge mobility, built-in strain, electrostatic disorder,…
A nitridation annealing process is well employed to reduce interface trap states that degrade the channel mobility of 4H-SiC/SiO${}_2$ metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor. In recent experiments, the existence of high N-atom…
The role of image charges in nanoporous semiconductor materials is investigated within the framework of the effective mass and envelope function approximations. We show that nanometric air bubbles in these materials can act as…
In this work is comprising of simulation results of amorphous Si (a-Si) solar cell, in which ITO was used as an anti-reflection coating (ARC). The thickness of ITO was optimized (65 nm) to achieve better performance for spectral region of…
We report a detailed experimental and theoretical investigation of the effect of residual strain, and strain relaxation, which manifests itself at the Si/SiO$_{2}$ interfaces in commercial silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. SOI material is…
A new transmission-type electron multiplier was fabricated from silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material by integrating an array of one dimensional (1D) silicon nanopillars onto a two dimensional (2D) silicon membrane. Primary electrons are…
Ferroelectricity in sputtered undoped-HfO$_2$ is attractive for composition control for low power and non-volatile memory and logic applications. Unlike doped HfO$_2$, evolution of ferroelectricity with annealing and film thickness effect…