Disordered Nanohole Patterns in Metal-Insulator Multilayer for Ultra-broadband Light Absorption: Atomic Layer Deposition for Lithography Free Highly repeatable Large Scale Multilayer Growth.

In this paper, we demonstrate a facile, lithography free, and large scale compatible fabrication route to synthesize an ultra-broadband wide angle perfect absorber based on metal-insulator-metal-insulator (MIMI) stack design. We first conduct a simulation and theoretical modeling approach to study the impact of different geometries in overall stack absorption. Then, a Pt-Al2O3 multilayer is fabricated using a single atomic layer deposition (ALD) step that offers high repeatability and simplicity in the fabrication step. In the best case, we get an absorption bandwidth (BW) of 600 nm covering a range of 400 nm-1000 nm. A substantial improvement in the absorption BW is attained by incorporating a plasmonic design into the middle Pt layer. Our characterization results demonstrate that the best configuration can have absorption over 0.9 covering a wavelength span of 400 nm-1490 nm with a BW that is 1.8 times broader compared to that of planar design. On the other side, the proposed structure retains its absorption high at angles as wide as 70°. The results presented here can serve as a beacon for future performance enhanced multilayer designs where a simple fabrication step can boost the overall device response without changing its overall thickness and fabrication simplicity.

Ultra-broadband, wide angle absorber utilizing metal insulator multilayers stack with a multi-thickness metal surface texture.

In this paper, we propose a facile route to fabricate a metal insulator multilayer stack to obtain ultra-broadband, wide angle behavior from the structure. The absorber, which covers near infrared (NIR) and visible (Vis) ranges, consists of a metal-insulator-metal-insulator (MIMI) multilayer where the middle metal layer has a variant thickness. It is found that this non-uniform thickness of the metal provides us with an absorption that is much broader compared to planar architecture. In the non-uniform case, each thickness is responsible for a specific wavelength range where the overall absorption is the superposition of these resonant responses and consequently a broad, perfect light absorption is attained. We first numerically examine the impact of different geometries on the overall light absorption property of the multilayer design. Afterward, we fabricate the designs and characterize them to experimentally verify our numerical findings. Characterizations show a good agreement with numerical results where the optimum absorption bandwidth for planar design is found to be 620 nm (380 nm-1000 nm) and it is significantly boosted to an amount of 1060 nm (350 nm-1410 nm) for multi-thickness case.

Mn(2+)-Doped CdSe/CdS Core/Multishell Colloidal Quantum Wells Enabling Tunable Carrier-Dopant Exchange Interactions.

In this work, we report the manifestations of carrier-dopant exchange interactions in colloidal Mn(2+)-doped CdSe/CdS core/multishell quantum wells. The carrier-magnetic ion exchange interaction effects are tunable through wave function engineering. In our quantum well heterostructures, manganese was incorporated by growing a Cd0.985Mn0.015S monolayer shell on undoped CdSe nanoplatelets using the colloidal atomic layer deposition technique. Unlike previously synthesized Mn(2+)-doped colloidal nanostructures, the location of the Mn ions was controlled with atomic layer precision in our heterostructures. This is realized by controlling the spatial overlap between the carrier wave functions with the manganese ions by adjusting the location, composition, and number of the CdSe, Cd1-xMnxS, and CdS layers. The photoluminescence quantum yield of our magnetic heterostructures was found to be as high as 20% at room temperature with a narrow photoluminescence bandwidth of ∼22 nm. Our colloidal quantum wells, which exhibit magneto-optical properties analogous to those of epitaxially grown quantum wells, offer new opportunities for solution-processed spin-based semiconductor devices.

Nanocrystal skins with exciton funneling for photosensing.

Highly photosensitive nanocrystal (NC) skins based on exciton funneling are proposed and demonstrated using a graded bandgap profile across which no external bias is applied in operation for light-sensing. Four types of gradient NC skin devices (GNS) made of NC monolayers of distinct sizes with photovoltage readout are fabricated and comparatively studied. In all structures, polyelectrolyte polymers separating CdTe NC monolayers set the interparticle distances between the monolayers of ligand-free NCs to <1 nm. In this photosensitive GNS platform, excitons funnel along the gradually decreasing bandgap gradient of cascaded NC monolayers, and are finally captured by the NC monolayer with the smallest bandgap interfacing the metal electrode. Time-resolved measurements of the cascaded NC skins are conducted at the donor and acceptor wavelengths, and the exciton transfer process is confirmed in these active structures. These findings are expected to enable large-area GNS-based photosensing with highly efficient full-spectrum conversion.