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Amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H) is an important material for surface defect passivation of photovoltaic silicon (Si) wafers in order to reduce their recombination losses. The material is however unstable with regards to hydrogen (H)…
The silicon/silicon dioxide (Si/SiO2) interface plays a crucial role in the performance, cost, and reliability of most modern microelectronic devices, from the basic transistor to flash memory, digital cameras, and solar cells. Today the…
Epitaxially grown nanowires have shown promise for photovoltaic applications due to their nanophotonic properties. Moreover, the mechanical properties of nanowires can reduce crystallographic defect formation at interfaces to help enable…
We study using first-principles calculations the energetics, structural and electronic properties of nitrogen incorporation in SiO2. We consider NO, NH, N2 and atomic N as the nitriding species interacting with a Si-Si bond of an otherwise…
Nanoscale dielectric resonators and quantum-confined semiconductors have enabled unprecedented control over light absorption and excited charges, respectively. In this work, we embed luminescent silicon nanocrystals (Si-NCs) into a 2D array…
Suppressing the reflection from material interfaces or entire layer stacks across an extended spectral range is important for various applications. While many approaches have been described for this purpose, we look at the problem here from…
Active feedback cooling of levitated dielectric particles is a pivotal technique for creating ultrasensitive sensors and probing fundamental physics. Here we demonstrate phase-adaptive feedback cooling of silica nanoparticles optically…
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC), built upon organic/inorganic hybrid materials, are promising third generation solar cells, which attract wide attentions due to their low-cost, flexibility and environment-friendly properties. We review…
The exceptional conducting nature of graphene makes it a viable candidate for enhancing the effectiveness of photocatalytic and biomedical nanomaterials. Herein, the immobilization of monodispersed silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanoparticles on…
The main feature of amorphous materials is the presence of excess vibrational modes at low energies, giving rise to the so called "boson peak" in neutron and optical spectroscopy. These same modes manifest themselves as two level systems…
We have fabricated highly-luminescent samples with erbium-doped amorphous silicon sub-oxide (a-SiOx<Er>) layers on SiO2/Si substrates. The layers are designed to provide a resonance with large modal overlap with the active material and with…
The polyanionic compound Na2MnSiO4 is regarded as one of the promising cathode materials for Na-ion batteries due to good specific capacity with its attractive prospect of utilization of two electrons in the redox processes. So, in this…
Visible luminescence is observed from the composite of SiO2 with embedded silicon nanocrystallites produced by femtosecond laser irradiation of hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) film in air. The photoluminescence originates from the…
We present a method for low temperature plasma-activated direct wafer bonding of III-V materials to Si using a transparent, conductive indium zinc oxide interlayer. The transparent, conductive oxide (TCO) layer provides excellent optical…
Atomic nanolines are one dimensional systems realized by assembling many atoms on a substrate into long arrays. The electronic properties of the nanolines depend on those of the substrate. Here, we demonstrate that to fully understand the…
During the formation of Si nanocrystals (Si NC) in Si$_x$C$_{1-x}$ layers via solid-phase crystallization, the unintended formation of nanocrystalline SiC reduces the minority carrier lifetime and therefore the performance of…
Hybrid organic/inorganic interfaces have been widely reported to host emergent properties that go beyond those of their single constituents. Coupling molecules to the recently discovered topological insulators, which possess a linearly…
Understanding mechanisms in DSSCs is fundamental for their improvement; this includes the nanocrystalline semiconducting layer behaviour. Different mesoporous TiO2 layers are fabricated and analyzed for possible use in DSSC solar cells. The…
Topologically trivial insulators can be classified into atomic insulators (AIs) and obstructed atomic insulators (OAIs) depending on whether the Wannier charge centers are localized or not at spatial positions occupied by atoms. An OAI can…
When the sulfur element is hyperdoped into crystalline silicon to a supersaturated density of 1020 cm-3, it can enhance the sub-bandgap light absorption of silicon from 0 to 70%, with the antireflection of surface dome structures. On the…