The Role of Spin-Flip Collisions in a Dark-Exciton Condensate.

We show that a Bose-Einstein condensate consisting of dark excitons forms in GaAs coupled quantum wells at low temperatures. We find that the condensate extends over hundreds of micrometers, well beyond the optical excitation region, and is limited only by the boundaries of the mesa. We show that the condensate density is determined by spin-flipping collisions among the excitons, which convert dark excitons into bright ones. The suppression of this process at low temperature yields a density buildup, manifested as a temperature-dependent blueshift of the exciton emission line. Measurements under an in-plane magnetic field allow us to preferentially modify the bright exciton density and determine their role in the system dynamics. We find that their interaction with the condensate leads to its depletion. We present a simple rate-equations model, which well reproduces the observed temperature, power, and magnetic-field dependence of the exciton density.

Electrically Driven Plasmons in Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor Tunnel Junctions: The Role of Silicon Amorphization.

We investigate electrically driven plasmon (EDP) emission in metal-insulator-semiconductor tunnel junctions. We find that amorphization of the silicon crystal at a narrow region near the junction due to the applied voltage plays a critical role in determining the nature of the emission. Furthermore, we suggest that the change in the properties of the insulating layer above a threshold voltage determines the EDP spatial properties, from being spatially uniform when the device is subjected to low voltages, to a spotty pattern peaking at high voltages. We emphasize the role of the high-energy emission as an unambiguous tool for distinguishing between EDP and radiative recombination of electrons and holes in the semiconductor.

Light Emission in Metal-Semiconductor Tunnel Junctions: Direct Evidence for Electron Heating by Plasmon Decay.

We study metal-insulator-semiconductor tunnel junctions where the metal electrode is a patterned gold layer, the insulator is a thin layer of Al2O3, and the semiconductor is p-type silicon. We observe light emission due to plasmon-assisted inelastic tunneling from the metal to the silicon valence band. The emission cutoff shifts to higher energies with increasing voltage, a clear signature of electrically driven plasmons. The cutoff energy exceeds the applied voltage, and a large fraction of the emission is above the threshold, ℏω > eV. We find that the emission spectrum manifests the Fermi-Dirac distribution of the electrons in the gold electrode. This distribution can be used to determine the effective electron temperature, Te, which is shown to have a linear dependence on the applied voltage. The strong correlation of Te with the plasmon energy serves as evidence that the mechanism for heating the electrons is plasmon decay at the source metal electrode.

Experimental Study of the Exciton Gas-Liquid Transition in Coupled Quantum Wells.

We study the exciton gas-liquid transition in GaAs/AlGaAs coupled quantum wells. Below a critical temperature, T_{C}=4.8 K, and above a threshold laser power density the system undergoes a phase transition into a liquid state. We determine the density-temperature phase diagram over the temperature range 0.1-4.8 K. We find that the latent heat increases linearly with temperature at T≲1.1 K, similarly to a Bose-Einstein condensate transition, and becomes constant at 1.1≲T<4.8 K. Resonant Rayleigh scattering measurements reveal that the disorder in the sample is strongly suppressed and the diffusion coefficient sharply increases with decreasing temperature at T

Fano Resonance in an Electrically Driven Plasmonic Device.

We present an electrically driven plasmonic device consisting of a gold nanoparticle trapped in a gap between two electrodes. The tunneling current in the device generates plasmons, which decay radiatively. The emitted spectrum extends up to an energy that depends on the applied voltage. Characterization of the electrical conductance at low temperatures allows us to extract the voltage drop on each tunnel barrier and the corresponding emitted spectrum. In several devices we find a pronounced sharp asymmetrical dip in the spectrum, which we identify as a Fano resonance. Finite-difference time-domain calculations reveal that this resonance is due to interference between the nanoparticle and electrodes dipolar fields and can be conveniently controlled by the structural parameters.

Random telegraph signal in a metallic double-dot system.

In this work, we investigate the dynamics of a single electron surface trap, embedded in a self-assembly metallic double-dot system. The charging and discharging of the trap by a single electron is manifested as a random telegraph signal of the current through the double-dot device. We find that we can control the duration time that an electron resides in the trap through the current that flows in the device, between fractions of a second to more than an hour. We suggest that the observed switching is the electrical manifestation of the optical blinking phenomenon, commonly observed in semiconductor quantum dots.

Exciton-plasmon interactions in quantum dot-gold nanoparticle structures.

We present a self-assembly method to construct CdSe/ZnS quantum dot-gold nanoparticle complexes. This method allows us to form complexes with relatively good control of the composition and structure that can be used for detailed study of the exciton-plasmon interactions. We determine the contribution of the polarization-dependent near-field enhancement, which may enhance the absorption by nearly two orders of magnitude and that of the exciton coupling to plasmon modes, which modifies the exciton decay rate.

Measurement of the conductance of single conjugated molecules.

Electrical conduction through molecules depends critically on the delocalization of the molecular electronic orbitals and their connection to the metallic contacts. Thiolated (- SH) conjugated organic molecules are therefore considered good candidates for molecular conductors: in such molecules, the orbitals are delocalized throughout the molecular backbone, with substantial weight on the sulphur-metal bonds. However, their relatively small size, typically approximately 1 nm, calls for innovative approaches to realize a functioning single-molecule device. Here we report an approach for contacting a single molecule, and use it to study the effect of localizing groups within a conjugated molecule on the electrical conduction. Our method is based on synthesizing a dimer structure, consisting of two colloidal gold particles connected by a dithiolated short organic molecule, and electrostatically trapping it between two metal electrodes. We study the electrical conduction through three short organic molecules: 4,4'-biphenyldithiol (BPD), a fully conjugated molecule; bis-(4-mercaptophenyl)-ether (BPE), in which the conjugation is broken at the centre by an oxygen atom; and 1,4-benzenedimethanethiol (BDMT), in which the conjugation is broken near the contacts by a methylene group. We find that the oxygen in BPE and the methylene groups in BDMT both suppress the electrical conduction relative to that in BPD.

Bose-Einstein condensates: microscopic magnetic-field imaging.

Today's magnetic-field sensors are not capable of making measurements with both high spatial resolution and good field sensitivity. For example, magnetic force microscopy allows the investigation of magnetic structures with a spatial resolution in the nanometre range, but with low sensitivity, whereas SQUIDs and atomic magnetometers enable extremely sensitive magnetic-field measurements to be made, but at low resolution. Here we use one-dimensional Bose-Einstein condensates in a microscopic field-imaging technique that combines high spatial resolution (within 3 micrometres) with high field sensitivity (300 picotesla).

Chaotic flow and efficient mixing in a microchannel with a polymer solution.

Microscopic flows are almost universally linear, laminar, and stationary because the Reynolds number, Re, is usually very small. That impedes mixing in microfluidic devices, which sometimes limits their performance. Here, we show that truly chaotic flow can be generated in a smooth microchannel of a uniform width at arbitrarily low Re, if a small amount of flexible polymers is added to the working liquid. The chaotic flow regime is characterized by randomly fluctuating three-dimensional velocity field and significant growth of the flow resistance. Although the size of the polymer molecules extended in the flow may become comparable to the microchannel width, the flow behavior is fully compatible with that in a macroscopic channel in the regime of elastic turbulence. The chaotic flow leads to quite efficient mixing, which is almost diffusion independent. For macromolecules, mixing time in this microscopic flow can be three to four orders of magnitude shorter than due to molecular diffusion.

Exciton liquid in coupled quantum wells.

Excitons in semiconductors may form correlated phases at low temperatures. We report the observation of an exciton liquid in gallium arsenide/aluminum gallium arsenide-coupled quantum wells. Above a critical density and below a critical temperature, the photogenerated electrons and holes separate into two phases: an electron-hole plasma and an exciton liquid, with a clear sharp boundary between them. The two phases are characterized by distinct photoluminescence spectra and by different electrical conductance. The liquid phase is formed by the repulsive interaction between the dipolar excitons and exhibits a short-range order, which is manifested in the photoluminescence line shape.