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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 523 records · Page 29
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Enabling Earth-Abundant Pyrite (FeS2) Semiconductor Nanostructures for High Performance Photovoltaic Devices

This project seeks to develop nanostructures of iron pyrite, an earth-abundant semiconductor, to enable their applications in high-performance photovoltaic (PV) devices. Growth of high purity iron pyrite nanostructures (nanowires, nanorods, and nanoplates), as well as iron pyrite thin films and single crystals, has been developed and their structures characterized. These structures have been fundamentally investigated to understand the origin of the low solar energy conversion efficiency of iron pyrite and various passivation strategies and doping approaches have been explored in order to improve it. By taking advantage of the high surface-to-bulk ratio in nanostructures and effective electrolyte gating, we fully characterized both the surface inversion and bulk electrical transport properties for the first time through electrolyte-gated Hall measurements of pyrite nanoplate devices and show that pyrite is n-type in the bulk and p-type near the surface due to strong inversion, which has important consequences to using nanocrystalline pyrite for efficient solar energy conversion. Furthermore, through a comprehensive investigation on n-type iron pyrite single crystals, we found the ionization of high-density bulk deep donor states, likely resulting from bulk sulfur vacancies, creates a non-constant charge distribution and a very narrow surface space charge region that limits the total barrier height, thus satisfactorily explains the limited photovoltage and poor photoconversion efficiency of iron pyrite single crystals. These findings suggest new ideas on how to improve single crystal pyrite and nanocrystalline or polycrystalline pyrite films to enable them for high performance solar applications.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Strain mapping at nanometer resolution using advanced nano-beam electron diffraction

In this work, we report on the development of a nanometer scale strain mapping technique by means of scanning nano-beam electron diffraction. Only recently possible due to fast acquisition with a direct electron detector, this technique allows for strain mapping with a high precision of 0.1% at a lateral resolution of 1 nm for a large field of view reaching up to 1 μm. We demonstrate its application to a technologically relevant strain-engineered GaAs/GaAsP hetero-structure and show that the method can even be applied to highly defected regions with substantial changes in local crystal orientation. Strain maps derived from atomically resolved scanning transmission electron microscopy images were used to validate the accuracy, precision and resolution of this versatile technique.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Ultrafast terahertz spectroscopy provides insight into charge transfer efficiency and dynamics in artificial photosynthesis

Terahertz (THz) spectroscopy provides a noncontact method to measure the ultrafast dynamics and photoconductivity of mobile carriers in semiconducting materials. This has proven useful in studying artificial photosynthesis devices which use semiconductor photoelectrodes. In this work, we present a brief introduction to optical-pump THz-probe (OPTP) spectroscopy, a technique that provides unique and useful insight into interfacial electron transfer (from the surface-attached dye to the conduction band of the semiconductor) in dye-sensitized photoelectrochemical cells. Compared with more familiar methods like visible transient absorption spectroscopy, OPTP spectroscopy stands out in offering both sub-picosecond time resolution as well as sensitivity to mobile carriers (electrons and holes) in the semiconductor portion of artificial photosynthesis devices. The mobile carriers are crucial to device performance as only they pass to the other half cell to complete the reaction. In order to highlight these advantages and illustrate the types of questions OPTP spectroscopy can address, we discuss three case studies. In the first, OPTP spectroscopy is used to measure the injection rates from a set of six different dyes, revealing the effect of the energetics and lifetimes of the dye excited states on interfacial electron transfer. The subsequent case studies investigate the influence of varying the moieties which bind to the surface (anchors), as well as the moieties that connect the chromophore with these anchors (linkers). OPTP spectroscopy was used to measure the interfacial electron transfer rate as these moieties were varied.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2015

Holographic patterning of high-performance on-chip 3D lithium-ion microbatteries

Significance Microscale batteries can deliver energy at the actual point of energy usage, providing capabilities for miniaturizing electronic devices and enhancing their performance. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance microbattery suitable for large-scale on-chip integration with both microelectromechanical and complementary metal-oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) devices. Enabled by a 3D holographic patterning technique, the battery possesses well-defined, periodically mesostructured porous electrodes. Such battery architectures offer both high energy and high power, and the 3D holographic patterning technique offers exceptional control of the electrode’s structural parameters, enabling customized energy and power for specific applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Interface modified thermally stable hole transporting layer for efficient organic light emitting diodes

Electrical transport in thermally stable 2, 7-bis [N, N-bis (4-methoxy-phenyl) amino]-9, 9-spirobifluorene (MeO-Spiro-TPD) thin films has been investigated as a function of temperature and organic layer thickness. ITO/MeO-Spiro-TPD interface was found to be injection limited and has been studied in detail to find barrier height for hole injection. The thickness of tetra-fluoro-tetracyano-quinodimethane thin films were optimized to be used as hole injection buffer layer which resulted in switching of charge transport mechanism from injection limited to space charge limited conduction above a critical thickness of 3 nm. Hole mobility has been measured using transient space charge limited conduction (SCLC), field dependent SCLC, and top contact transistor characteristics. The charge carrier transport in interface modified hole only devices was analysed using Gaussian disorder model. The thermal stability of MeO-Spiro-TPD has been investigated by atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction studies. The study indicates a thermally stable and highly efficient hole transport material for application in organic semiconductor based devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Generating and moving Dirac points in a two-dimensional deformed honeycomb lattice arrayed by coupled semiconductor quantum dots

Analysis of the electronic properties of a two-dimensional (2D) deformed honeycomb structure arrayed by semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) is conducted theoretically by using tight-binding method in the present paper. Through the compressive or tensile deformation of the honeycomb lattice, the variation of energy spectrum has been explored. We show that, the massless Dirac fermions are generated in this adjustable system and the positions of the Dirac cones as well as slope of the linear dispersions could be manipulated. Furthermore, a clear linear correspondence between the distance of movement d (the distance from the Dirac points to the Brillouin zone corners) and the tunable bond angle α of the lattice are found in this artificial planar QD structure. These results provide the theoretical basis for manipulating Dirac fermions and should be very helpful for the fabrication and application of high-mobility semiconductor QD devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Study of SiO{sub 2}/4H-SiC interface nitridation by post-oxidation annealing in pure nitrogen gas

An alternative and effective method to perform interface nitridation for 4H-SiC metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) devices was developed. We found that the high-temperature post-oxidation annealing (POA) in N{sub 2} ambient was beneficial to incorporate a sufficient amount of nitrogen atoms directly into thermal SiO{sub 2}/SiC interfaces. Although N{sub 2}-POA was ineffective for samples with thick thermal oxide layers, interface nitridation using N{sub 2}-POA was achieved under certain conditions, i.e., thin SiO{sub 2} layers (< 15 nm) and high annealing temperatures (>1350°C). Electrical characterizations of SiC-MOS capacitors treated with high-temperature N{sub 2}-POA revealed the same evidence of slow trap passivation and fast trap generation that occurred in NO-treated devices fabricated with the optimized nitridation conditions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

High performance transistors via aligned polyfluorene-sorted carbon nanotubes

We evaluate the performance of exceptionally electronic-type sorted, semiconducting, aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) in field effect transistors (FETs). High on-conductance and high on/off conductance modulation are simultaneously achieved at channel lengths which are both shorter and longer than individual s-SWCNTs. The s-SWCNTs are isolated from heterogeneous mixtures using a polyfluorene-derivative as a selective agent and aligned on substrates via dose-controlled, floating evaporative self-assembly at densities of ∼50 s-SWCNTs μm{sup −1}. At a channel length of 9 μm the s-SWCNTs percolate to span the FET channel, and the on/off ratio and charge transport mobility are 2.2 × 10{sup 7} and 46 cm{sup 2} V{sup −1} s{sup −1}, respectively. At a channel length of 400 nm, a large fraction of the s-SWCNTs directly span the channel, and the on-conductance per width is 61 μS μm{sup −1} and the on/off ratio is 4 × 10{sup 5}. These results are considerably better than previous solution-processed FETs, which have suffered from poor on/off ratio due to spurious metallic nanotubes that bridge the channel. 4071 individual and small bundles of s-SWCNTs are tested in 400 nm channel length FETs, and all show semiconducting behavior, demonstrating the high fidelity of polyfluorenes as selective agents and the promise of assembling s-SWCNTs from solution to create high performance semiconductor electronic devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

A 3D simulation comparison of carrier transport in green and blue c-plane multi-quantum well nitride light emitting diodes

Until recently, the electrical efficiency of green nitride light-emitting diodes (LEDs) was considerably lower than that of blue LEDs. This is particularly surprising as one would expect a reduced forward voltage with increasing emission wavelength. In this paper, we theoretically investigated the impact of the number of quantum wells on the forward voltage of III-nitride LEDs with x = 0.15 (blue) and x = 0.24 (green) In x Ga1–xN QWs. The simulated dependence of current density (J) on applied diode bias (V) shows a significant increase of 1.9 V in the forward voltage between one and five quantum well (QW) c-plane green LED structures. Artificially turning off the polarization fields in the simulation does not entirely suppress this effect. Due to the large band offsets in the green LED multiple QW stack, simulations indicate a sequential band filling of the QW sequence. Furthermore, this mechanism should not be limited to c-plane LEDs and could also be present in nonpolar or semipolar devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Charging/discharging behavior and mechanism of silicon quantum dots embedded in amorphous silicon carbide films

The charging/discharging behavior of Si quantum dots (QDs) embedded in amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC{sub x}) was investigated based on the Al/insulating layer/Si QDs embedded in a-SiC{sub x}/SiO{sub 2}/p-Si (metal-insulator-quantum dots-oxide-silicon) multilayer structure by capacitance-voltage (C-V) and conductance-voltage (G-V) measurements. Transmission electron microscopy and Raman scattering spectroscopy measurements reveal the microstructure and distribution of Si QDs. The occurrence and shift of conductance peaks indicate the carrier transfer and the charging/discharging behavior of Si QDs. The multilayer structure shows a large memory window of 5.2 eV at ±8 V sweeping voltage. Analysis of the C-V and G-V results allows a quantification of the Coulomb charging energy and the trapped charge density associated with the charging/discharging behavior. It is found that the memory window is related to the size effect, and Si QDs with large size or low Coulomb charging energy can trap two or more electrons by changing the charging voltage. Meanwhile, the estimated lower potential barrier height between Si QD and a-SiC{sub x}, and the lower Coulomb charging energy of Si QDs could enhance the charging and discharging effect of Si QDs and lead to an enlarged memory window. Further studies of the charging/discharging mechanism of Si QDs embedded in a-SiC{sub x} can promote the application of Si QDs in low-power consumption semiconductor memory devices.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Poisson_CCD: A dedicated simulator for modeling CCDs

A dedicated simulator, Poisson_CCD, has been constructed which models astronomical CCDs by solving Poisson’s equation numerically and simulating charge transport within the CCD. The potentials and free carrier densities within the CCD are self-consistently solved for, giving realistic results for the charge distribution within the CCD storage wells. The simulator has been used to model the CCDs that are being used to construct the LSST digital camera. The simulator output has been validated by comparing its predictions with several different types of CCD measurements, including astrometric shifts, brighter-fatter induced pixel–pixel covariances, saturation effects, and diffusion spreading. The code is open source and freely available.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

Low voltage tunneling magnetoresistance in CuCrO{sub 2}-based semiconductor heterojunctions at room temperature

CuCrO{sub 2}-based heterojunction diodes with rectifying characteristics have been fabricated by combining p-type Mg-doped CuCrO{sub 2} and n-type Al-doped ZnO. It was found that the current for the heterojunction in low bias voltage region is dominated by the trap-assisted tunneling mechanism. Positive magnetoresistance (MR) effect for the heterojunction can be observed at room temperature due to the tunneling-induced antiparallel spin polarization near the heterostructure interface. The MR effect becomes enhanced with the magnetic field, and shows the maximum at a bias voltage around 0.5 V. The phenomena indicate that the CuCrO{sub 2}-based heterojunction is a promising candidate for low-power semiconductor spintronic devices.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2014

An ultrafast carbon nanotube terahertz polarisation modulator

We demonstrate ultrafast modulation of terahertz radiation by unaligned optically pumped single-walled carbon nanotubes. Photoexcitation by an ultrafast optical pump pulse induces transient terahertz absorption in nanowires aligned parallel to the optical pump. By controlling the polarisation of the optical pump, we show that terahertz polarisation and modulation can be tuned, allowing sub-picosecond modulation of terahertz radiation. Such speeds suggest potential for semiconductor nanowire devices in terahertz communication technologies.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Implanted Guard Ring Edge Termination With Avalanche Capability for Vertical GaN Devices

Edge termination is the key building block in power devices to enable near-ideal, avalanche breakdown voltage (BV). Here, this work presents the design, fabrication, and physics of a GaN guard ring (GR) edge termination formed by selective-area nitrogen implantation through an epitaxial p-GaN layer. The fabrication of this termination only includes a single implantation step that does not require precise control of implant depth, rendering a large process latitude. The selective-area implantation produces p-GaN rings that are separated by the implanted, semi-insulating regions. The number and spacing of the p-type rings are found to determine the BV of the vertical GaN p-n diode. The 16-ring structure enables a BV of 1800 V, being 88% of the theoretical 1-D parallel-plane limit. Avalanche characteristics are observed in devices with a large variety of GR designs. Finally, we present a comprehensive survey on the efficiency, fabrication complexity, real estate, and avalanche capability of various edge termination techniques that have been reported in vertical GaN devices. The high efficiency (among the highest reported in avalanche-capable GaN terminations), simple and robust fabrication process, and uniform avalanche capability make this implanted GR a promising edge termination for high-voltage GaN devices.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2016

Using Diffusion-Reaction Simulation to Study the Formation and Self-Compensation Mechanism of Cu Doping in CdTe

An improved model of copper p-type doping in CdTe absorbers is proposed that accounts for the mechanisms related to tightly bound Cu(i)-Cu(Cd) and Cd(i)-Cu(Cd) complexes that both limit diffusion and cause self-compensation of Cu species. The new model explains apparent discrepancy between DFT-calculated and fitted diffusion parameters of Cu reported in our previous work, and allows for better understanding of performance and metastabilities in CdTe PV devices.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Semiconductor-based, large-area, flexible, electronic devices on {110}<100> oriented substrates

Novel articles and methods to fabricate the same resulting in flexible, oriented, semiconductor-based, electronic devices on {110}<100> textured substrates are disclosed. Potential applications of resulting articles are in areas of photovoltaic devices, flat-panel displays, thermophotovoltaic devices, ferroelectric devices, light emitting diode devices, computer hard disc drive devices, magnetoresistance based devices, photoluminescence based devices, non-volatile memory devices, dielectric devices, thermoelectric devices and quantum dot laser devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2018

Efficiency increased to 15.2% for ultra-thin Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 solar cells

We improved the efficiency of ultra-thin (0.49-um-thick) Cu(In,Ga)Se 2 solar cells to 15.2% (officially measured). To achieve these results, we modified growth conditions from the 3-stage process but did not add post-deposition treatments or additional material layers. The increase in device efficiency is attributed to a steeper Ga gradient in the CIGS with higher Ga content near the Mo back contact, which can hinder electron-hole recombination at the interface. We discuss device measurements and film characterization for ultra-thin CIGS. Modeling is presented that shows the route to even higher efficiencies for devices with CIGS thicknesses of 0.5 um.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗