2018, Ringleb, Franziska, Andree, Stefan, Heidmann, Berit, Bonse, Jörn, Eylers, Katharina, Ernst, Owen, Boeck, Torsten, Schmid, Martina, Krüger, Jörg

Micro-concentrator solar cells offer an attractive way to further enhance the efficiency of planar-cell technologies while saving absorber material. Here, two laser-based bottom-up processes for the fabrication of regular arrays of CuInSe2 and Cu(In,Ga)Se2 microabsorber islands are presented, namely one approach based on nucleation and one based on laser-induced forward transfer. Additionally, a procedure for processing these microabsorbers to functioning micro solar cells connected in parallel is demonstrated. The resulting cells show up to 2.9% efficiency and a significant efficiency enhancement under concentrated illumination.

2018, Swamy, Tushar, Park, Richard, Sheldon, Brian W., Rettenwander, Daniel, Porz, Lukas, Berendts, Stefan, Uecker, Reinhard, Carter, W. Craig, Chiang, Yet-Ming

Solid electrolytes potentially enable rechargeable batteries with lithium metal anodes possessing higher energy densities than today’s lithium ion batteries. To do so the solid electrolyte must suppress instabilities that lead to poor coulombic efficiency and short circuits. In this work, lithium electrodeposition was performed on single-crystal Li6La3ZrTaO12 garnets to investigate factors governing lithium penetration through brittle electrolytes. In single crystals, grain boundaries are excluded as paths for lithium metal propagation. Vickers microindentation was used to introduce surface flaws of known size. However, operando optical microscopy revealed that lithium metal penetration propagates preferentially from a different, second class of flaws. At the perimeter of surface current collectors smaller in size than the lithium source electrode, an enhanced electrodeposition current density causes lithium filled cracks to initiate and grow to penetration, even when large Vickers defects are in proximity. Modeling the electric field distribution in the experimental cell revealed that a 5-fold enhancement in field occurs within 10 micrometers of the electrode edge and generates high local electrochemomechanical stress. This may determine the initiation sites for lithium propagation, overriding the presence of larger defects elsewhere.

2017, Rose, B.C., Tyryshkin, A.M., Riemann, H., Abrosimov, N.V., Becker, P., Pohl, H.-J., Thewalt, M.L.W., Itoh, K.M., Lyon, S.A.

We achieve the strong-coupling regime between an ensemble of phosphorus donor spins in a highly enriched 28Si crystal and a 3D dielectric resonator. Spins are polarized beyond Boltzmann equilibrium using spin-selective optical excitation of the no-phonon bound exciton transition resulting in N=3.6×1013 unpaired spins in the ensemble. We observe a normal mode splitting of the spin-ensemble–cavity polariton resonances of 2g√N=580  kHz (where each spin is coupled with strength g) in a cavity with a quality factor of 75 000 (γ≪κ≈60  kHz, where γ and κ are the spin dephasing and cavity loss rates, respectively). The spin ensemble has a long dephasing time (T∗2=9  μs) providing a wide window for viewing the dynamics of the coupled spin-ensemble–cavity system. The free-induction decay shows up to a dozen collapses and revivals revealing a coherent exchange of excitations between the superradiant state of the spin ensemble and the cavity at the rate g√N. The ensemble is found to evolve as a single large pseudospin according to the Tavis-Cummings model due to minimal inhomogeneous broadening and uniform spin-cavity coupling. We demonstrate independent control of the total spin and the initial Z projection of the psuedospin using optical excitation and microwave manipulation, respectively. We vary the microwave excitation power to rotate the pseudospin on the Bloch sphere and observe a long delay in the onset of the superradiant emission as the pseudospin approaches full inversion. This delay is accompanied by an abrupt π-phase shift in the peusdospin microwave emission. The scaling of this delay with the initial angle and the sudden phase shift are explained by the Tavis-Cummings model.

2017, Paik, Hanjong, Chen, Zhen, Lochocki, Edward, Seidner H., Ariel, Verma, Amit, Tanen, Nicholas, Park, Jisung, Uchida, Masaki, Shang, ShunLi, Zhou, Bi-Cheng, Brützam, Mario, Uecker, Reinhard, Liu, Zi-Kui, Jena, Debdeep, Shen, Kyle M., Muller, David A., Schlom, Darrell G.

Epitaxial La-doped BaSnO3 films were grown in an adsorption-controlled regime by molecular-beam epitaxy, where the excess volatile SnOx desorbs from the film surface. A film grown on a (001) DyScO3 substrate exhibited a mobility of 183 cm2 V-1 s-1 at room temperature and 400 cm2 V-1 s-1 at 10 K despite the high concentration (1.2 × 1011 cm-2) of threading dislocations present. In comparison to other reports, we observe a much lower concentration of (BaO)2 Ruddlesden-Popper crystallographic shear faults. This suggests that in addition to threading dislocations, other defects - possibly (BaO)2 crystallographic shear defects or point defects - significantly reduce the electron mobility.

2017, Boschker, Jos E., Calarco, Raffaella

Phase change materials are a technologically important materials class and are used for data storage in rewritable DVDs and in phase change random access memory. Furthermore, new applications for phase change materials are emerging. Phase change materials with a high structural quality, such as offered by epitaxial films, are needed in order to study the fundamental properties of phase change materials and to improve our understanding of this materials class. Here, we review the progress made in the growth of crystalline phase change materials by physical methods, such as molecular beam epitaxy, sputtering, and pulsed laser deposition. First, we discuss the difference and similarities between these physical deposition methods and the crystal structures of Ge2Sb2Te5, the prototype phase change material. Next, we focus on the growth of epitiaxial GST films on (0 0 1)- and (1 1 1)-oriented substrates, leading to the conclusion that (1 1 1)-oriented substrates are preferred for the growth of phase change materials. Finally, the growth of GeTe/Sb2Te3 superlattices on amorphous and single crystalline substrates is discussed.

2017, Ezhevskii, A.A., Detochenko, A.P., Soukhorukov, A.V., Guseinov, D.V., Kudrin, A.V., Abrosimov, N.V., Riemann, H.

Spin transport of conduction electrons in silicon samples doped with bismuth in the 1.1•1013 - 7.7•1015 cm-3 concentration range was studied by the Hall effect measurements. The dependence of the Hall voltage magnitude on the magnetic field is the sum of the normal and spin Hall effects. The electrons are partially polarized by an external magnetic field and are scattered by the bismuth spin-orbit potential. Spin-flip scattering results in the additional electromotive force which compensates the normal Hall effect in strong magnetic fields.

2017, Schmidbauer, Martin, Hanke, Michael, Kwasniewski, Albert, Braun, Dorothee, von Helden, Leonard, Feldt, Christoph, Leake, Steven John, Schwarzkopf, Jutta

Scanning X-ray nanodiffraction on a highly periodic ferroelectric domain pattern of a strained K0.75Na0.25NbO3 epitaxial layer has been performed by using a focused X-ray beam of about 100 14;nm probe size. A 90°-rotated domain variant which is aligned along [1 2]TSO has been found in addition to the predominant domain variant where the domains are aligned along the [12]TSO direction of the underlying (110) TbScO3 (TSO) orthorhombic substrate. Owing to the larger elastic strain energy density, the 90°-rotated domains appear with significantly reduced probability. Furthermore, the 90°-rotated variant shows a larger vertical lattice spacing than the 0°-rotated domain variant. Calculations based on linear elasticity theory substantiate that this difference is caused by the elastic anisotropy of the K0.75Na0.25NbO3 epitaxial layer.

2017, Miller, Wolfram, Böttcher, Klaus, Galazka, Zbigniew, Schreuer, Jürgen

Our numerical modelling of the Czochralski growth of single crystalline β-Ga2O3 crystals (monoclinic symmetry) starts at the 2D heat transport analysis within the crystal growth furnace, proceeds with the 3D heat transport and fluid flow analysis in the crystal-melt-crucible arrangement and targets the 3D thermal stress analysis within the β-Ga2O3 crystal. In order to perform the stress analysis, we measured the thermal expansion coefficients and the elastic stiffness coefficients in two samples of a β-Ga2O3 crystal grown at IKZ. Additionally, we analyse published data of β-Ga2O3 material properties and use data from literature for comparative calculations. The computations were performed by the software packages CrysMAS, CGsim, Ansys-cfx and comsol Multiphysics. By the hand of two different thermal expansion data sets and two different crystal orientations, we analyse the elastic stresses in terms of the von-Mises stress.

2018, Pavlov, S. G., Deßmann, N., Redlich, B., van der Meer, A. F. G., Abrosimov, N. V., Riemann, H., Zhukavin, R. Kh., Shastin, V. N., Hübers, H.-W.

We report on an optically pumped laser where photons are simultaneously generated by population inversion and by stimulated Raman scattering in the same active medium, namely crystalline silicon doped by bismuth (SiBi). The medium utilizes three electronic levels: ground state [|1

2018, Boschker, Jos E., Markurt, Toni, Albrecht, Martin, Schwarzkopf, Jutta

There is a growing interest in exploiting the functional properties of niobium oxides in general and of the T-Nb2O5 polymorph in particular. Fundamental investigations of the properties of niobium oxides are, however, hindered by the availability of materials with sufficient structural perfection. It is expected that high-quality T-Nb2O5 can be made using heteroepitaxial growth. Here, we investigated the epitaxial growth of T-Nb2O5 on a prototype perovskite oxide, SrTiO3. Even though there exists a reasonable lattice mismatch in one crystallographic direction, these materials have a significant difference in crystal structure: SrTiO3 is cubic, whereas T-Nb2O5 is orthorhombic. It is found that this difference in symmetry results in the formation of domains that have the T-Nb2O5 c-axis aligned with the SrTiO3 <001>s in-plane directions. Hence, the number of domain orientations is four and two for the growth on (100)s- and (110)s-oriented substrates, respectively. Interestingly, the out-of-plane growth direction remains the same for both substrate orientations, suggesting a weak interfacial coupling between the two materials. Despite challenges associated with the heteroepitaxial growth of T-Nb2O5, the T-Nb2O5 films presented in this paper are a significant improvement in terms of structural quality compared to their polycrystalline counterparts.