Chip-integrated non-mechanical microfluidic pump driven by electrowetting on dielectrics.

A microfluidic pump is presented that generates its pumping action via the EWOD (electrowetting-on-dielectric) effect. The flow is generated by the periodic movement of liquid-vapor interfaces in a large number (≈106) of microcavities resulting in a volume change of approx. 0.5 pl per cavity per pump stroke. The total flow resulting from all microcavities adds up to a few hundred nanolitres per cycle. Passive, topologically optimized, non-mechanical Tesla valves are used to rectify the flow. As a result, the micropump operates without any moving components. The dimensioning, fabrication, and characterization process of the micropump are described. Device fabrication is done using conventional manufacturing processes from microsystems technology, enabling cost-effective mass production on wafer-level without additional assembly steps like piezo chip-level bonding, etc. This allows for direct integration into wafer-based microfluidic or lab-on-a-chip applications. Furthermore, first measurement results obtained with prototypes of the micropump are presented. The voltage- and frequency-dependent pump performance is determined. The measurements show that a continuous flow rate larger than 0.2 ml min-1 can be achieved at a maximum pump pressure larger than 12 mbar.

P-Terminated InP (001) Surfaces: Surface Band Bending and Reactivity to Water.

Stable InP (001) surfaces are characterized by fully occupied and empty surface states close to the bulk valence and conduction band edges, respectively. The present photoemission data show, however, a surface Fermi level pinning only slightly below the midgap energy which gives rise to an appreciable surface band bending. By means of density functional theory calculations, it is shown that this apparent discrepancy is due to surface defects that form at finite temperature. In particular, the desorption of hydrogen from metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy grown P-rich InP (001) surfaces exposes partially filled P dangling bonds that give rise to band gap states. These defects are investigated with respect to surface reactivity in contact with molecular water by low-temperature water adsorption experiments using photoemission spectroscopy and are compared to our computational results. Interestingly, these hydrogen-related gap states are robust with respect to water adsorption, provided that water does not dissociate. Because significant water dissociation is expected to occur at steps rather than terraces, surface band bending of a flat InP (001) surface is not affected by water exposure.

Highly efficient passive Tesla valves for microfluidic applications.

A multistage optimization method is developed yielding Tesla valves that are efficient even at low flow rates, characteristic, e.g., for almost all microfluidic systems, where passive valves have intrinsic advantages over active ones. We report on optimized structures that show a diodicity of up to 1.8 already at flow rates of 20 µl s- 1 corresponding to a Reynolds number of 36. Centerpiece of the design is a topological optimization based on the finite element method. It is set-up to yield easy-to-fabricate valve structures with a small footprint that can be directly used in microfluidic systems. Our numerical two-dimensional optimization takes into account the finite height of the channel approximately by means of a so-called shallow-channel approximation. Based on the three-dimensionally extruded optimized designs, various test structures were fabricated using standard, widely available microsystem manufacturing techniques. The manufacturing process is described in detail since it can be used for the production of similar cost-effective microfluidic systems. For the experimentally fabricated chips, the efficiency of the different valve designs, i.e., the diodicity defined as the ratio of the measured pressure drops in backward and forward flow directions, respectively, is measured and compared to theoretical predictions obtained from full 3D calculations of the Tesla valves. Good agreement is found. In addition to the direct measurement of the diodicities, the flow profiles in the fabricated test structures are determined using a two-dimensional microscopic particle image velocimetry (µPIV) method. Again, a reasonable good agreement of the measured flow profiles with simulated predictions is observed.

Reconstructions of the As-Terminated GaAs(001) Surface Exposed to Atomic Hydrogen.

We explore the atomic structures and electronic properties of the As-terminated GaAs(001) surface in the presence of hydrogen based on ab initio density functional theory. We calculate a phase diagram dependent on the chemical potentials of As and H, showing which surface reconstruction is the most stable for a given set of chemical potentials. The findings are supported by the calculation of energy landscapes of the surfaces, which indicate possible H bonding sites as well as the density of states, which show the effect of hydrogen adsorption on the states near the fundamental band gap.

InP and AlInP(001)(2 × 4) Surface Oxidation from Density Functional Theory.

The atomic structure and electronic properties of the InP and Al0.5In0.5P(001) surfaces at the initial stages of oxidation are investigated via density functional theory. Thereby, we focus on the mixed-dimer (2 × 4) surfaces stable for cation-rich preparation conditions. For InP, the top In-P dimer is the most favored adsorption site, while it is the second-layer Al-Al dimer for AlInP. The energetically favored adsorption sites yield group III-O bond-related states in the energy region of the bulk band gap, which may act as recombination centers. Consistently, the In p state density around the conduction edge is found to be reduced upon oxidation.

Nonlinear plasmon-exciton coupling enhances sum-frequency generation from a hybrid metal/semiconductor nanostructure.

The integration of metallic plasmonic nanoantennas with quantum emitters can dramatically enhance coherent harmonic generation, often resulting from the coupling of fundamental plasmonic fields to higher-energy, electronic or excitonic transitions of quantum emitters. The ultrafast optical dynamics of such hybrid plasmon-emitter systems have rarely been explored. Here, we study those dynamics by interferometrically probing nonlinear optical emission from individual porous gold nanosponges infiltrated with zinc oxide (ZnO) emitters. Few-femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron emission microscopy reveals multiple long-lived localized plasmonic hot spot modes, at the surface of the randomly disordered nanosponges, that are resonant in a broad spectral range. The locally enhanced plasmonic near-field couples to the ZnO excitons, enhancing sum-frequency generation from individual hot spots and boosting resonant excitonic emission. The quantum pathways of the coupling are uncovered from a two-dimensional spectrum correlating fundamental plasmonic excitations to nonlinearly driven excitonic emissions. Our results offer new opportunities for enhancing and coherently controlling optical nonlinearities by exploiting nonlinear plasmon-quantum emitter coupling.

Strong Spatial and Spectral Localization of Surface Plasmons in Individual Randomly Disordered Gold Nanosponges.

Porous nanosponges, percolated with a three-dimensional network of 10 nm sized ligaments, recently emerged as promising substrates for plasmon-enhanced spectroscopy and (photo)catalysis. Experimental and theoretical work suggests surface plasmon localization in some hot-spot modes as the physical origin of their unusual optical properties, but so far the existence of such hot-spots has not been proven. Here we use scattering-type scanning near-field nanospectroscopy on individual gold nanosponges to reveal spatially and spectrally confined modes at 10 nm scale by recording local near-field scattering spectra. High quality factors of individual hot-spots of more than 40 are demonstrated, predicting high Purcell factors up to 106. The observed field localization and enhancement make such nanosponges an appealing platform for a variety of applications ranging from nonlinear optics to strong-coupling physics.

Impact of Rotational Twin Boundaries and Lattice Mismatch on III-V Nanowire Growth.

Pseudomorphic planar III-V transition layers greatly facilitate the epitaxial integration of vapor-liquid-solid grown III-V nanowires (NW) on Si(111) substrates. Heteroepitaxial (111) layer growth, however, is commonly accompanied by the formation of rotational twins. We find that rotational twin boundaries (RTBs), which intersect the surface of GaP/Si(111) heterosubstrates, generally cause horizontal NW growth and may even suppress NW growth entirely. Away from RTBs, the NW growth direction switches from horizontal to vertical in the case of homoepitaxial GaP NWs, whereas heteroepitaxial GaAs NWs continue growing horizontally. To understand this rich phenomenology, we develop a model based on classical nucleation theory. Independent of the occurrence of RTBs and specific transition layers, our model can generally explain the prevalent observation of horizontal III-V NW growth in lattice mismatched systems and the high crystal quality of horizontal nanowires.

Long-lived electron emission reveals localized plasmon modes in disordered nanosponge antennas.

We report long-lived, highly spatially localized plasmon states on the surface of nanoporous gold nanoparticles-nanosponges-with high excitation efficiency. It is well known that disorder on the nanometer scale, particularly in two-dimensional systems, can lead to plasmon localization and large field enhancements, which can, in turn, be used to enhance nonlinear optical effects and to study and exploit quantum optical processes. Here, we introduce promising, three-dimensional model systems for light capture and plasmon localization as gold nanosponges that are formed by the dewetting of gold/silver bilayers and dealloying. We study light-induced electron emission from single nanosponges, a nonlinear process with exponents of n≈5...7, using ultrashort laser pulse excitation to achieve femtosecond time resolution. The long-lived electron emission process proves, in combination with optical extinction measurements and finite-difference time-domain calculations, the existence of localized modes with lifetimes of more than 20 fs. These electrons couple efficiently to the dipole antenna mode of each individual nanosponge, which in turn couples to the far-field. Thus, individual gold nanosponges are cheap and robust disordered nanoantennas with strong local resonances, and an ensemble of nanosponges constitutes a meta material with a strong polarization independent, nonlinear response over a wide frequency range.

Sub-bandgap absorption in organic solar cells: experiment and theory.

Most high-performance organic solar cells involve bulk-heterojunctions in order to increase the active donor-acceptor interface area. The power conversion efficiency depends critically on the nano-morphology of the blend and the interface. Spectroscopy of the sub-bandgap region, i.e., below the bulk absorption of the individual components, provides unique opportunities to study interface-related properties. We present absorption measurements in the sub-bandgap region of bulk heterojunctions made of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) as an electron donor and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) as an electron acceptor and compare them with quantum-chemical calculations and recently published data on the external quantum efficiency (EQE). The very weak absorption of the deep sub-bandgap region measured by the ultra-sensitive Photothermal Deflection Spectroscopy (PDS) features Urbach tails, polaronic transitions, conventional excitons, and possibly charge-transfer states. The quantum-chemical calculations allow characterizing some of the unsettled spectral features.

Multivalence-band calculation of the excitonic dielectric function for hexagonal GaN.

The complex dielectric function of hexagonal gallium nitride (α-GaN) is obtained from a numerical solution of the excitonic Schrödinger equation taking into account the full 6 × 6 valence-band structure. The valence-band parametrization includes anisotropy, nonparabolicity, and the coupling of angular-momentum eigenstates. Spectra of excitonic eigenfunctions are obtained from a time-dependent initial-value problem, which is solved via an exponential split-operator method. In particular, we calculate the dielectric function and the reflectivity of a-plane GaN with polarization vectors parallel and perpendicular to the c-axis of the crystal. The simulated reflection spectra are in excellent agreement with recent experimental data and allow the unambiguous identification of the experimentally observed excitonic resonances. The binding energies of the FXA, FXB, and FXC excitons found in our calculation differ by up to 27%, depending on the chosen parameter set. An important consequence of this observation is that the experimentally observed splittings of the excitons cannot be used for the parametrization of the valence band near the Γ-point, but need to be corrected by the differences of the binding energies. This is of general relevance for all spectroscopic measurements in semiconductors with a wide bandgap.