What is it about?
A trion is an excitation in a semiconductor, which consists of three charged particles: two electrons and one hole (a negative trion) or two holes and one electron (a positive trion). So far, trions were studied mostly in semiconductor QWs based on arsenide, telluride, or selenide compounds, where trion binding energy remains below 10 meV. In the present work, we study ZnO/(Zn,Mg)O quantum wells and report on the unprecedently high binding energy (27.6 meV) of quantum well confined negative trion. Such energy is comparable to the thermal energy at room temperature.
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Why is it important?
A negative trion stable at room temperature would allow spintronics devices exploiting the degree of freedom related to the spin of the minority carrier (hole) and manipulated with external electric field due to an uncompensated charge of the majority carrier (electron). The well-developed technology of epitaxial growth of cm-sized and homogeneous ZnO heterostructures hosting the trions opens a perspective for scalable implementation of such trion based, optoelectronic devices.
Perspectives
We believe that our work can provide a strategy for the research and fabrication of spintronic and optoelectronic devices operating in ambient conditions, such as the optical analog of the Datta and Das spin transistor. The work is a result of a fruitful collaboration of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw and the Institute of Physics, PAS in Warsaw.
Jan Suffczyński
University of Warsaw
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This page is a summary of: Stable charged exciton in a ZnO/(Zn,Mg)O quantum well at near room temperature, Applied Physics Letters, July 2020, American Institute of Physics,
DOI: 10.1063/5.0016380.
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