Clarifying the atomic origin of electron killers in β-Ga_(2)O_(3) from the first-principles study of electron capture rates

The emerging wide bandgap semiconductorβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) has attracted great interest due to its promising applications for high-power electronic devices and solar-blind ultraviolet photodetectors.Deep-level defects inβ-Ga_(2)O_(3) have been intensively studied towards improving device performance.Deep-level signatures E_(1),E_(2),and E_(3) with energy positions of 0.55–0.63,0.74–0.81,and 1.01–1.10 eV below the conduction band minimum have frequently been observed and extensively investigated,but their atomic origins are still under debate.In this work,we attempt to clarify these deep-level signatures from the comparison of theoretically predicted electron capture cross-sections of suggested candidates,Ti and Fe substituting Ga on a tetrahedral site(Ti_(GaI) and Fe_(GaI))and an octahedral site(Ti_(GaII) and Fe_(GaII)),to experimentally measured results.The first-principles approach predicted electron capture cross-sections of Ti_(GaI) and Ti_(GaII) defects are 8.56×10^(–14) and 2.97×10^(–13) cm^(2),in good agreement with the experimental values of E_(1) and E_(3) centers,respectively.We,therefore,confirmed that E_(1) and E_(3) centers are indeed associated with Ti_(GaI) and Ti_(GaII) defects,respectively.Whereas the predicted electron capture cross-sections of Fe_(Ga) defect are two orders of magnitude larger than the experimental value of the E_(2),indicating E_(2) may have other origins like C_(Ga) and Ga_(i),rather than common believed Fe_(Ga).

Glass-like energy and property landscape of Pt nanoclusters

Pt nanoclusters play an important role in catalysis-related applications. Essential to their activities are their geometries and energy landscapes. In this work, we studied the energy landscapes of Pt clusters using a parallel differential evolution optimization algorithm and an accelerated ab initio atomic relaxation method, which allowed us to explore unprecedentedly large numbers of geometry local minima at ab initio level. We found many lower-energy isomers with low symmetry in their geometry. The energy landscapes were demonstrated to be glass-like with a large number of local minimum structures close to the global minimum. The electronic and magnetic properties of most glass-like local minima were dramatically different from the global minimum, and they should be observed in the experimental measurements. The connections between these local minima were further analyzed using data mining techniques.

Anharmonic multi-phonon nonradiative transition: A n ab initio calculation approach

Nonradiative carrier recombinations at deep centers in semiconductors are of great importance for both fundamental physics and device engineering.In this article,we provide a revised analysis of Huang's original nonradiative multi-phonon(NMP)theory with ab initio calculations.First,we confirmed at the first-principles level that Huang's concise formula gives the same results as the matrix-based formula,and that Huang's high-temperature formula provides an analytical expression for the coupling constant in Marcus theory.Secondly,we correct for anharmonic effects by taking into account local phonon-mode variations for different charge states of a defect.The corrected capture rates for defects in GaN and SiC agree well with experiments.