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Astrophysical $S$ factors and reaction rates of the direct radiative capture processes $^{3}{\rm He}(\alpha, \gamma)^{7}{\rm Be}$ and $^{3}{\rm H}(\alpha,\gamma)^{7}{\rm Li}$, as well as the primordial abundance of the $^{7}{\rm Li}$…
New generation Indium based lead-free Cs2InAgCl6 is a promising halide material in photovoltaic applications due to its good air stability and non-toxic behavior. But its wide band gap (>3 eV) is not suitable for solar spectrum and hence…
Two-dimensional electron and hole gas systems, enabled through band structure design and epitaxial growth on planar substrates, have served as key platforms for fundamental condensed matter research and high performance devices. The…
Silicon and Germanium monopnictides SiP, SiAs, GeP and GeAs form a family of 2D layered semiconductors. We have succeeded in growing bulk single crystals of these compounds by melt-growth under high pressure (0.5-1 GPa) in a cubic anvil hot…
The band gaps of isostructural Bi2OS2 and LaOBiS2 were examined using optical absorption and discussed with the band structures calculated based on the crystal structures determined using synchrotron X-ray diffraction. The Bi 6p and S 3p…
Metal mono-chalcogenide compounds offer a large variety of electronic properties depending on chemical composition, number of layers and stacking-order. Among them, the InSe has attracted much attention due to the promise of outstanding…
The buffer carbon layer obtained in the first instance by evaporation of Si from the Si-rich surfaces of silicon carbide (SiC) is often studied only as the intermediate to the synthesis of SiC supported graphene. In this work, we explore…
Implementation of an optically active material on silicon has been a persistent technological challenge. For tandem photovoltaics using a Si bottom cell, as well as for other optoelectronic applications, there has been a longstanding need…
Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) has been grown by atomic layer deposition on n-type 4H-SiC with and without a thin silicon dioxide (SiO2) intermediate layer. By means of Capacitance Voltage and Thermal Dielectric Relaxation Current measurements, the…
In this article, a brief introduction is first given on infrared studies of materials at high pressures using a diamond anvil cell. Then, our recent results of high-pressure infrared studies are described for Mg$_2$Si, InAs, and InSb. For…
The high-pressure behavior of silicon telluride (Si2Te3), a two-dimensional (2D) layered material, was investigated using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction in a diamond anvil cell to 11.5 GPa coupled with first-principles theory. Si2Te3…
This work reports an original method for the fabrication of Metal-Isulator-Semiconductor (MIS) structures with silicon nanocrystals (Si NCs) based active layers embedded in the insulating SiO 2 oxide, for high performance solar cell and…
The addition of alloying elements plays an essential role in helium (He) behaviours produced by transmutation in metal alloys. Effects of solutes (Ni, Cr, Ti, P, Si, C) on the behaviours of He and He-He pair in face-centred cube (fcc) iron…
Bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) is a prototypical three-dimensional topological insulator whose Dirac surface states have been extensively studied theoretically and experimentally. Surprisingly little, however, is known about the energetics and…
Technology involving hybrid superconductor-semiconductor materials is a promising avenue for engineering quantum devices for information storage, manipulation, and transmission. Proximity-induced superconducting correlations are an…
Solar cells based on a light absorbing layer of the organometal halide perovskite CH$_3$NH$_3$PbI$_3$ have recently reached 15% conversion efficiency, though how these materials work remains largely unknown. We analyse the electronic…
Conventional semiconductors typically have bonding states near the valence band maximum (VBM) and antibonding states near the conduction band minimum (CBM). Semiconductors with the opposite electronic configuration, namely an antibonding…
Recent observations of two nodeless gaps in superconducting CeCu$_2$Si$_2$ have raised intensive debates on its exact gap symmetry, while a satisfactory theoretical basis is still lacking. Here we propose a phenomenological approach to…
Although many possible two-dimensional (2D) topological insulators (TIs) have been predicted in recent years, there is still lack of experimentally realizable 2D TI. Through first-principles and tight-binding simulations, we found an…
Using first-principles variable-composition evolutionary methodology, we explored the high-pressure structures of beryllium hydrides between 0 and 400 GPa. We found that BeH$_2$ remains the only stable compound in this pressure range. The…