Both n- and p-type lead telluride (PbTe)-based thermoelectric (TE) materials display high TE efficiency, but the low fracture strength may limit their commercial applications. To find ways to improve these macroscopic mechanical properties, we report here the ideal strength and deformation mechanism of PbTe using density functional theory calculations. This provides structure-property relations...

In solids the phonon-assisted, nonradiative decay from high-energy electronic excited states to low-energy electronic excited states is picosecond fast. It was hoped that electron and hole relaxation could be slowed down in quantum dots, due to the unavailability of phonons energy matched to the large energy-level spacings ("phonon-bottleneck"). However, excited-state relaxation was observed to...

We report pulsed emission from an optically pumped lead-salt vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with a PbSe/PbSrSe quantum-well active region. The lasing wavelength of l54.44 mm is nearly constant over the temperature range 200–280 K, and the threshold is only 10.5 kW/cm at 260 K, where the gain peak and cavity mode are in resonance. Over 330 mW of peak power is emitted at 260 K, into a cir...

We report an evaluation of an epitaxially grown uncooled InAs photodiode for the use in radiation thermometry. Radiation thermometry measurements was taken using the photodiode covered blackbody temperatures of 50 °C–300 °C. By determining the photocurrent and signal-to-noise ratio, the temperature error of the measurements was deduced. It was found that an uncooled InAs photodiode, with the pe...

Nanocrystalline lead selenide (PbSe) thin films were prepared on glass substrates by a chemical bath deposition method, using sodium selenosulfate (Na(2)SeSO(3)) as a source of Se(2-) ions, and lead acetate as a source of Pb(2+) ions. Trisodium citrate (TSC) was used as a complexing agent. PbSe films were prepared at various deposition temperatures while the pH value was kept fixed at 11, and t...

The mechanistic pathways for the formation of zinc selenide, zinc sulphide and ternary zinc selenide sulphide in the gas phase decomposition of Zn[(C6H5)2PSSe]2 single-source precursor has been explored on the singlet and doublet potential energy surfaces using density functional theory method in order to understand the thermodynamic and kinetic properties. The optimized geometries and the pred...

An InAs0.89Sb0.11 photovoltaic detector that operates at room temperature in the 2.5–5 mm mid-infrared wavelength region is reported. The photodiode has an extended spectral response compared with other currently available III–V room-temperature detectors. In order to accommodate the large lattice mismatch between the InAs0.89Sb0.11 active region and the InAs substrate, a buffer layer with an i...

Electronic grade semiconductor films have been obtained via the sintering of solution processed PbS and PbSe nanocrystals at room temperature. Prior attempts to achieve similar films required the sintering of nanocrystals at higher temperatures (>350 °C), which inhibits the processing of such films on a flexible polymer substrate, and it is also expensive. We reduced the sintering temperature b...

Ultra-small PbSe nanocrystals (NCs) were synthesized via a 'one-pot' approach in olive oil as the reaction medium and capping agent. The optical spectra showed discernible blue shifts in the absorption band edges (570-780 nm) due to strong quantum confinement effects and photoluminescence (PL) spectra showed significant strong emission peaks in the range of 780-850 nm. The broad peaks in the po...

Group IIIA elements (B, Ga, In, and Tl) have been doped into PbSe for enhancement of thermoelectric properties. The electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity were systematically studied. Room-temperature Hall measurements showed an effective increase in the electron concentration upon both Ga and In doping and the hole concentration upon Tl doping to ~7 × 10(19) cm(...