The wide‐bandgap, semiconducting ternary compound Hg3Se2I2has shown promise as room‐temperature hard‐radiation detector. Since this compound was first reported, there has been significant improvement in crystal growth using a chemical vapor transport method with a polyethylene growth agent. To study the effects of this additional precursor on crystal quality, the nature of radiative and nonradiative defects using photoluminescence (PL) and photocurrent (PC) studies of Hg3Se2I2single crystals are investigated. In contrast to earlier studies, excitation intensity‐dependence of PL emission shows that the near‐band‐edge (NBE) emission bands are all excitonic in nature. The PL intensity decreases with increasing temperature, with the higher energy peaks quenching by 40 K and the deeper levels quenched after 110 K. The PC spectra show a complex structure at room temperature related to NBE transitions in the band structure, while at low temperature only the direct gap transition is observed due to phonons freezing out. The PC spectra at low temperature also indicate several midgap levels that are attributed to native defects within the bulk crystal. These results indicate that the high quality of Hg3Se2I2single crystals is maintained when the transport agent is used during growth, although there are still a variety of defects present.
Safe and Scalable Polyethylene Glycol-Assisted Hydrothermal Synthesis and Laser Cooling of 10%Yb3+:LiLuF4 Crystals
Rare earth doped lithium fluorides are a class of materials with a wide variety of optical applications, but the hazardous reagents used in their synthesis often restrict the amount of product that can be created at one time. In this work, 10%Yb3+:LiLuF4 (Yb:LLF) crystals have been synthesized through a safe and scalable polyethylene glycol (PEG)-assisted hydrothermal method. A combination of X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and photoluminescence (PL) measurements were used to characterize the obtained materials. The influence of reaction temperature, time, fluoride source, and precursor amount on the shape and size of the Yb:LLF crystals are also discussed. Calibrated PL spectra of Yb3+ ions show laser cooling to more than 15 K below room temperature in air and 5 K in deionized water under 1020 nm diode laser excitation measured at a laser power of 50 mW.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1719797
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10322837
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Applied Sciences
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2076-3417
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy has been used to study the defect levels in thin film copper indium diselenide (CuInSe2, CIS) which we are developing as the absorber layer for the bottom cell of a monolithically grown perovskite/CuInSe2 tandem solar cell. Temperature and laser power dependent PL measurements of thin film CIS for two different Cu/In ratios (0.66 and 0.80) have been performed. The CIS film with Cu/In = 0.80 shows a prominent donor-to-acceptor peak (DAP) involving a shallow acceptor of binding energy ~22 meV, with phonon replica at ~32 meV spacing. In contrast, PL measurement of CIS film for Cu/In = 0.66 taken at 20 K exhibited an asymmetric and broad PL spectrum with peaks at 0.845 eV and 0.787 eV. Laser intensity dependent PL revealed that the observed peaks 0.845 eV and 0.787 eV shift towards higher energy (aka j-shift) at ~11.7 meV/decade and ~ 8 meV/decade with increase in laser intensity respectively. The asymmetric and broad spectrum together with large j-shift suggests that the observed peaks at 0.845 eV and 0.787 eV were related to band to-tail (BT) and band-to-impurity (BI) transition, respectively. Such a band-tail-related transition originates from the potential fluctuation of defect states at low temperature. The appearance of band related transition in CIS film with Cu/In = 0.66 is the indicator of the presence of large number of charged defect states.more » « less
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Non-invasive temperature probes have use in many settings where conventional thermometers may not be suitable or as efficient. An optical temperature probe is a material whose optical properties, such as photoluminescence (PL) or PL lifetime, are known as a function of temperature. We present results of PL lifetime studies of the organic dye Rhodamine B, which is a good candidate for use in temperature probes due to its large PL emission. We have measured PL lifetimes using time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC). The lifetimes were measured from temperatures of 15 K to 330 K. The lifetimes appear to be non-monotonic: they increase with temperature to a point, then decrease again. It is uncertain what is causing this unexpected trend, and we are in the process of verifying these lifetime measurements as well as studying other possible luminescent materials such as semiconductor quantum dots for application as temperature probes. *Research was performed at BYU as part of the NSF REU program, grant no. 1757998.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Abstract Here we present a study on the quenchability of hydrous mafic melts. We show via hydrothermal experiments that the ability to quench a mafic hydrous melt to a homogeneous glass at cooling rates relevant to natural samples has a limit of no more than 9 ± 1 wt% of dissolved H2O in the melt. We performed supra-liquidus experiments on a mafic starting composition at 1–1.5 GPa spanning H2O-undersaturated to H2O-saturated conditions (from ~1 to ~21 wt%). After dissolving H2O and equilibrating, the hydrous mafic melt experiments were quenched. Quenching rates of 20 to 90 K/s at the glass transition temperature were achieved, and some experiments were allowed to decompress from thermal contraction while others were held at an isobaric condition during quench. We found that quenching of a hydrous melt to a homogeneous glass at quench rates comparable to natural conditions is possible at water contents up to 6 wt%. Melts containing 6–9 wt% of H2O are partially quenched to a glass, and always contain significant fractions of quench crystals and glass alteration/devitrification products. Experiments with water contents greater than 9 wt% have no optically clear glass after quench and result in fine-grained mixtures of alteration/devitrification products (minerals and amorphous materials). Our limit of 9 ± 1 wt% agrees well with the maximum of dissolved H2O contents found in natural glassy melt inclusions (8.5 wt% H2O). Other techniques for estimating pre-eruptive dissolved H2O content using petrologic and geochemical modeling have been used to argue that some arc magmas are as hydrous as 16 wt% H2O. Thus, our results raise the question of whether the observed record of glassy melt inclusions has an upper limit that is partially controlled by the quenching process. This potentially leads to underestimating the maximum amount of H2O recycled at arcs when results from glassy melt inclusions are predominantly used to estimate water fluxes from the mantle.more » « less
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/app12020774
