We report on the third-order nonlinear optical responses of V2O5 films prepared by pyrolysis of spin-coated films of vanadium 2-ethylhexanoate. Temporal behavior of third-order optical nonlinearity of the spin-coated V2O5 films was examined at a wavelength of 532 nm by the degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) technique using a mode locked Nd/YAG laser (35 ps fwhm). Fast relaxation with a lifetime of 25 ps and slow relaxation with a lifetime of 150 ps were observed. The nonlinear transmission experiment on the spin-coated V2O5 films using the same laser source showed that the transmittance decreased with increasing intensity of the incident light. The intensity-dependent absorption coefficients (β) were roughly estimated to be 3.5×10−5 cm/W. Transient absorption properties of the V2O5 film were measured by use of the second and third harmonics of a Q switched Nd/YAG laser (10 ns fwhm). The results observed for the nonlinear transmission and the transient absorption suggest that induced absorption would contribute to the third-order optical nonlinearity of the V2O5 films with fast response times, and also suggest that the V2O5 films have potentiality for use as optical power limiting materials.

We have investigated the nitrogen incorporation dependency on temperature, pressure, C/Si ratio and growth rate in a horizontal hot-wall CVD reactor. The incorporation mechanism for 4H- and 6H-SiC both for Si- and C-face material is presented. A comparison with previously published results in a cold-wall reactor is also made.

Epitaxial ferroelectric BaTiO3 thin films have been developed as a material for microphotonics. Efforts have been directed toward developing these materials for thin film electro-optic modulators. Films were deposited by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) on both MgO and silicon substrates. The electro-optic properties of the thin films were measured. For BaTiO3 thin films grown on (100) MgO substrates, the effective electro-optic coefficient, reff depended on the magnitude and direction of the electric field. Coefficients as high as 260 pm/V have been measured. Investigation of BaTiO3 films on silicon has been undertaken. Epitaxial BaTiO3 thin films were deposited by MOCVD on (100) MgO layers grown on silicon (100) substrates by metal-organic molecular beam epitaxy (MOMBE). The MgO serves as the low index optical cladding layer as well as an insulating layer. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicated that BaTiO3 was epitaxial with an orientational relation given by BaTiO3 (100)//Si (100) and BaTiO3[011]//Si [011]. Polarization measurements indicated that the BaTiO3 epitaxial films on Si were in the ferroelectric state.

Enhanced light output is observed from a light-emitting diode (LED) structure containing a two-dimensional (2D) photonic crystal. The capture of emitted light into planar waveguide modes reduces the extraction efficiency of LEDs. Here, 2D photonic crystals are utilized to: 1) enhance the extraction of light in the vertical direction from an LED and 2) enhance optical pumping by directly coupling light from a pump laser into the LED structure. Spatially and spectrally-resolved photoluminescence (PL) is used to characterize the enhancements. A 100-fold enhancement in extraction for a single wavelength into the vertical direction is obtained without the photonic crystal penetrating the active material.

The tuning of one-dimensional photonic band gap structures based on porous silicon will be presented. The photonic structures are prepared by applying a periodic pulse of current density to form alternating high and low porosity layers. The width and position of the photonic bandgap are determined by the dielectric function of each layer, which depends on porosity, and their thickness. In this work we show that by controlling the oxidation of the porous silicon structures, it is possible to tune the photonic bandgap towards shorter wavelengths. The formation of silicon dioxide during oxidation causes a reduction of the refractive index, which induces the blue shift. The photonic band gap is determined experimentally by taking the total reflection of the structures. In order to understand the tuning of the photonic band gap, we developed a geometrical model using the effective medium approximation to calculate the dielectric function of each of the oxidized porous silicon layers. The two key parameters are the porosity and the parameter β, defined as the ratio between the silicon dioxide thickness and the pore radius before oxidation. Choosing the parameter β, to fit the experimental photonic band gap of the oxidized structures, we extract the fraction of oxide that is present. For example, the measured 240 nm blue shift of a photonic bandgap that was centered at 1.7 microns corresponds to the transformation of 30% of the structure into silicon dioxide. A similar approach can be used for oxidized two-dimensional porous silicon photonic structures.

Anisortopic Si dry etching is usually carried out with chlorinated gases for electronic devices such as Si-LSIs. We had another look at Si dry etching with fluorinated gases in order to obtain an ideal air hole for two-dimensional Si photonic crystal. We simulated vertical Si etching, and showed the possibility that single crystal Si can be etched vertically with high selectivity to the etching mask using fluorinated gases. We investigated ECR etching with an SF6-CF4 mixture, and vertical Si etching was achieved at room temperature. High Si/Ni selectivity above 100 was also obtained. Two-dimensional Si photonic crystal with a photonic band gap between 1.25 and 1.51 μm was produced using SF6-CF4 ECR plasma and a thin Ni mask.

The physics of bulk wurtzite-structure III-nitride materials and of III-nitride heterostructures includes many phenomena that can be modulated by the application of stress. In particular, p-type material is expected to display a rich variety of piezo-resistive and piezo-optic effects that originate from the stress-induced modulation of lattice polarization charges, of valence band energies, and of bulk, surface, and interface defect states in the band gap. Here we focus on the expected effects of in-plane uniaxial on p-channel AlGaN/GaN heterostructures grown along the hexagonal axis on sapphire substrates. The valence band structure in the channel region is calculated self-consistently in the framework of a six-band Rashba-Sheka-Pikus (RSP) Hamiltonian. Stress-effects are included (in linear elastic theory) through deformation potentials and through the modulation of interfacial polarization charges associated with the piezoelectric nature of the constituent materials.