Hot electron photovoltaics is emerging as a candidate for low cost and ultra thin solar cells. Plasmonic means can be utilized to significantly boost device efficiency. We separately form the tunneling metal-insulator-metal (MIM) junction for electron collection and the plasmon exciting MIM structure on top of each other, which provides high flexibility in plasmonic design and tunneling MIM des...

The local density of states of a degenerate semiconductor is investigated at low magnetic fields by resonant tunneling through a discrete localized electron level. Fine structure in the tunneling current provides a temperature insensitive image of mesoscopic fluctuations of the local density of states below the Fermi level. The fluctuations are demonstrated to originate from quantum interferenc...

– We studied spin-polarized tunneling through a vacuum barrier using spinpolarized scanning tunneling microscopy on Co(0001). By varying the tip-to-sample distance in a controlled way, the tunneling magnetoresistance, i.e., the tunneling current asymmetry for parallel and antiparallel configuration of tip and sample magnetization, was measured as a function of the gap width. At large gap widths...

We present a technique to calculate the transport properties through onedimensional models of molecular wires. The calculations include inelastic electron scattering due to electron-lattice interaction. The coupling between the electron and the lattice is crucial to determine the transport properties in one-dimensional systems subject to Peierls transition since it drives the transition itself....

The combination of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates with ultrathin Si and insulator layers opens new opportunities for quantum effect and hot-electron devices. Unlike their III–V predecessors, these devices have the crucial advantage of potential integrability with dominant silicon technology. We discuss three examples of such SOI devices: a three-terminal real-space transfer transistor wi...

Ratchet is a device that produces direct current of particles when driven by an unbiased force. We demonstrate a simple scattering quantum ratchet based on an asymmetrical quantum tunneling effect in two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction (R2DEG). We consider the tunneling of electrons across a square potential barrier sandwiched by interface scattering potentials of un...

We investigated a mechanism of rectification in diblock oligomer diode molecules that have recently been synthesized and showed a pronounced asymmetry in the measured I-V spectrum. The observed rectification effect is due to the resonant nature of electron transfer in the system and the localization properties of bound state wave functions of resonant states of the tunneling electron interactin...

We explore the characteristics of equilibrium tunneling of electrons from a 3D electrode into a high mobility 2D electron system. For most noninteger filling factors, we find that tunneling can be characterized by a single, well-defined tunneling rate. However, for spin-polarized quantum Hall states (n 1, 3, and 1 3) tunneling occurs at two distinct rates that differ by up to 2 orders of magnit...