Limitations of the Tauc Plot Method

The Tauc plot is a method originally developed to derive the optical gap of amorphous semiconductors such as amorphous germanium or silicon. By measuring the absorption coefficient α(hν) and plotting (Formula presented.) versus photon energy hν, a value for the optical gap (Tauc gap) is determined. In this way non-direct optical transitions...

Model To Determine a Distinct Rate Constant for Carrier Multiplication from Experiments

Carrier multiplication (CM) is the process in which multiple electron–hole pairs are created upon absorption of a single photon in a semiconductor. CM by an initially hot charge carrier occurs in competition with cooling by phonon emission, with the respective rates determining the CM efficiency. Up until now, CM rates have only been calculated...

High-Performance Back-Illuminated Three-Dimensional Stacked Single-Photon Avalanche Diode Implemented in 45-nm CMOS Technology

We present a high-performance back-illuminated three-dimensional stacked single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD), which is implemented in 45-nm CMOS technology for the first time. The SPAD is based on a P⁺/Deep N-well junction with a circular shape, for which N-well is intentionally excluded to achieve a wide depletion region, thus...

Deep sub-wavelength metrology for advanced defect classification

Particle defects are important contributors to yield loss in semi-conductor manufacturing. Particles need to be detected and characterized in order to determine and eliminate their root cause. We have conceived a process flow for advanced defect classification (ADC) that distinguishes three consecutive steps; detection, review and...

A hybrid semiconductor-glass waveguide laser

We report on a novel type of laser in which a semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) receives frequency-selective feedback from a glass-waveguide circuit. The laser we present here is based on InP for operation in the 1.55 µm wavelength range. The Si3N4/SiO2 glass waveguide circuit comprises two sequential high-Q ring resonators. Adiabatic...

Enhanced terahertz emission from thin film semiconductor/metal interfaces

Terahertz light is electromagnetic radiation, similar to visible light. The photons that the terahertz light is comprised of carry a much smaller amount of energy compared to the visible light photons. Unlike visible light, terahertz light can pass through materials like plastic, cardboards, wood etc.; a very useful property which enables it to...

Photogeneration Diffusion and Decay of Charge Carriers in Quantum-Dot Solids

Semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs), which can have a variety of sizes, shapes and chemical compositions, will be a large and important family of future advanced materials.This thesis focuses on colloidal semiconductor NC solids, also called quantum-dot (QD) solids, which are promising materials for many applications, such as photo-detectors, field...

Atomistic Models of Amorphous Semiconductors

Crystalline silicon is probably the best studied material, widely used by the semiconductor industry. The subject of this thesis is an intriguing form of this element namely amorphous silicon. It can contain a varying amount of hydrogen and is denoted as a-Si:H. It completely lacks the neat long range order of the crystal, yet its structure is...

Magnetic field effects on switching noise in a quantum point contact