There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Quantum cryptography could well be the first application of quantum mechanics at the individual quanta level. The very fast progress in both theory and experiments over the recent years are reviewed, with emphasis on open questions and technological issues.

Quantum Cryptography

We present a comprehensive, up-to-date compilation of band parameters for the technologically important III–V zinc blende and wurtzite compound semiconductors: GaAs, GaSb, GaP, GaN, AlAs, AlSb, AlP, AlN, InAs, InSb, InP, and InN, along with their ternary and quaternary alloys. Based on a review of the existing literature, complete and consistent parameter sets are given for all materials. Emphasizing the quantities required for band structure calculations, we tabulate the direct and indirect energy gaps, spin-orbit, and crystal-field splittings, alloy bowing parameters, effective masses for electrons, heavy, light, and split-off holes, Luttinger parameters, interband momentum matrix elements, and deformation potentials, including temperature and alloy-composition dependences where available. Heterostructure band offsets are also given, on an absolute scale that allows any material to be aligned relative to any other.

Band parameters for III–V compound semiconductors and their alloys

The interaction of matter and light is one of the fundamental processes occurring in nature, and its most elementary form is realized when a single atom interacts with a single photon. Reaching this regime has been a major focus of research in atomic physics and quantum optics1 for several decades and has generated the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics2,3. Here we perform an experiment in which a superconducting two-level system, playing the role of an artificial atom, is coupled to an on-chip cavity consisting of a superconducting transmission line resonator. We show that the strong coupling regime can be attained in a solid-state system, and we experimentally observe the coherent interaction of a superconducting two-level system with a single microwave photon. The concept of circuit quantum electrodynamics opens many new possibilities for studying the strong interaction of light and matter. This system can also be exploited for quantum information processing and quantum communication and may lead to new approaches for single photon generation and detection.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/cond-mat/0407325.pdf

Strong coupling of a single photon to a superconducting qubit using circuit quantum electrodynamics

In the coming decade, the ability to sense and detect the state of biological systems and living organisms optically, electrically and magnetically will be radically transformed by developments in materials physics and chemistry. The emerging ability to control the patterns of matter on the nanometer length scale can be expected to lead to entirely new types of biological sensors. These new systems will be capable of sensing at the single-molecule level in living cells, and capable of parallel integration for detection of multiple signals, enabling a diversity of simultaneous experiments, as well as better crosschecks and controls.

/pdf/the-use-of-nanocrystals-in-biological-detection-3f8dgrg9fx.pdf

The use of nanocrystals in biological detection

The focus of this work is on the characterization of passivated crystalline Si (c-Si) surfaces subjected to various cleaning sequences involving UV ozone (UVo) treatment and HF-dip. A combination of photoconductance decay (PCD) measurements and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) studies were used to obtain a deeper insight into passivation mechanisms of UVo and its origin at the nano-scale.

Transmission Electron Microscopy Study of UV-ozone Cleaned Silicon Surfaces for Application in High Efficiency Photovoltaics

IQE data has long been a key analysis tool for c-Si cell research. Transitioning from single point measurements to spatially resolved measurements allows for the detailed analysis of quality and uniformity of the processes and materials used in cell manufacturing. This work explores how spatially resolved reflectance data can be analyzed to provide valuable information regarding the front surface texturing, rear surface properties, and ARC properties of completed solar cells.

Optical loss analysis of silicon solar cells using spatial resolved quantum efficiency and reflectance measurements

Surface passivation is a key process to achieve high-efficiency in silicon solar cells. In this paper we applied UV-ozone treatment to achieve high-quality passivation on both planar and textured, n-type and p-type wafers.

UV-Ozone Oxide Treatment for Improved Surface Passivation

Metal induced recombination (i.e., contact recombination) is a significant loss mechanism for homojunction crystalline silicon solar cells. In this work, a method is proposed to extract the metal induced recombination parameters using high- resolution photoluminescence PL imaging. By calculating the voltage distribution profile between fingers, the total current flow from the semiconductor to the finger, per area, can be obtained. The total recombination current at the semiconductor area and the metal contact area are then calculated and used to calculate the reverse saturation current for each region. The metal induced reverse saturation current $(j_{0m})$ is then obtained. This measurement allows the extraction of $j_{0m}$ on finished solar cells without the need to make special metal test structures. This is a big advantage over existing methods.

Metal Induced Recombination Parameter Extraction using High Resolution Photoluminescence Imaging for Silicon Solar Cells

Presented at: The 8th Conference on Optics of Excitons in Confined Systems, Lecce, Italy, February 3 - 4, 2003

Winston V. Schoenfeld

Papers

Transmission Electron Microscopy Study of UV-ozone Cleaned Silicon Surfaces for Application in High Efficiency Photovoltaics

Optical loss analysis of silicon solar cells using spatial resolved quantum efficiency and reflectance measurements

UV-Ozone Oxide Treatment for Improved Surface Passivation

Metal Induced Recombination Parameter Extraction using High Resolution Photoluminescence Imaging for Silicon Solar Cells

Temperature Study of the Photoluminescence of a Single InAs/GaAs Quantum Dot