Transparent silicon carbide/tunnel SiO₂ passivation for c-Si solar cell front side: Enabling J_sc > 42 mA/cm² and iV_oc of 742 mV

N-type microcrystalline silicon carbide (μc-SiC:H(n)) is a wide bandgap material that is very promising for the use on the front side of crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells. It offers a high optical transparency and a suitable refractive index that reduces parasitic absorption and reflection losses, respectively. In this work, we...

Thickness-Dependent Refractive Index of 1L, 2L, and 3L MoS ₂ , MoSe ₂ , WS ₂ , and WSe ₂

An interesting aspect of 2D materials is the change of their electronic structure with the reduction of thickness. Molybdenum and tungsten-based transition metal dichalcogenides form an important family of 2D materials, whose members show a thickness-dependent bandgap and strong light–matter interaction. In this work, the experimental...

All-optical on-chip sensor for high refractive index sensing

A highly sensitive sensor design based on two-dimensional photonic crystal cavity is demonstrated. The geometric structure of the cavity is modified to gain a high quality factor, which enables a sensitive refractive index sensing. A group of slots with optimized parameters is created in the cavity. The existence of the slots enhances the light...

Efficiency enhancement calculations of state-of-the-art solar cells by luminescent layers with spectral shifting, quantum cutting, and quantum tripling function

Solar cells of which the efficiency is not limited by the Shockley-Queisser limit can be obtained by integrating a luminescent spectral conversion layer into the cell structure. We have calculated the maximum efficiency of state-of-the-art c-Si, pc-Si, a-Si, CdTe, GaAs, CIS, CIGS, CGS, GaSb, and Ge solar cells with and without an integrated...

Characterization of low temperature deposited atomic layer deposition TiO2 for MEMS applications

TiO2 is an interesting and promising material for micro-/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS). For high performance and reliable MEMS/NEMS, optimization of the optical characteristics, mechanical stress, and especially surface smoothness of TiO2 is required. To overcome the roughness issue of the TiO2 films due to crystallization during...

Electronic tuning of integrated blue-violet GaN tunable coupled-cavity laser

We demonstrate an integrated tunable coupled-cavity InGaN/GaN laser with the emission wavelength centered on 409 nm. The electronic tuning range was 1.6 nm and threshold currents were 650 mA per cavity for 8.7-?m-wide laser ridges. Multimode laser emission with an average full width at half maximum of 0.3 nm was observed. We estimate the...

Strong modification of the reflection from birefringent layers of semiconductor nanowires by nanoshells

The propagation of light in layers of vertically aligned nanowires is determined by their unique and extreme optical properties. Depending on the nanowire filling fraction and their diameter, layers of nanowires form strongly birefringent media. This large birefringence gives rise to sharp angle dependent peaks in polarized reflection. We...

Medium characterization from interface-wave impedance and ellipticity using simultaneous displacement and pressure measurements

The interface-wave impedance and ellipticity are wave attributes that interrelate the full waveforms as observed in different components. For each of the fluid/elastic-solid interface waves, i.e., the pseudo-Rayleigh (pR) and Stoneley (St) waves, the impedance and ellipticity are found to have different functional dependencies on Young’s modulus...

Birefringence-induced mode-dependent tuning of liquid crystal infiltrated InGaAsP photonic crystal nanocavities

Mode-dependent shifts of resonant frequencies of cavities in liquid crystal (LC) infiltrated planar photonic crystals (PhC) are experimentally observed when the temperature is varied across the LC ordering transition. The shifts can be in opposite directions, even for two very similar nearly degenerate modes. The behavior is attributed to the...

Determination of in-depth density profiles of multilayer structures

We developed and demonstrate an analysis method in which we calibrate the intensity scale of cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) using Cu K? reflectometry. This results in quantitative in-depth density profiles of multilayer structures. Only three free parameters are needed to obtain the calibrated profiles, corresponding to...