{"title":"High BFOM and threshold voltage stability in E-mode GaN HEMTs by using p-graded AlGaN cap layer","authors":"Bowen Yang,Xiaohui Ma,Bin Hou,Mao Jia,Zhiqiang Xue,Qian Xiao,Ling Yang,Xiaohua Ma,Yue Hao","doi":"10.1063/5.0345042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0345042","url":null,"abstract":"In this work, a high-performance E-mode Au free GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) on Si featuring a p-graded-AlGaN cap layer is proposed. The device exploits the built-in polarization field induced by the graded-AlGaN cap layer and its superior interface quality to effectively mitigate gate-edge electric field crowding. With a gate-drain spacing (LGD) of 16 μm, the HEMT achieves a high breakdown voltage (VBR) of 1530 V (defined at ID = 10 μA/mm) and a low specific on-resistance (RON,sp) of 2.91 mΩ cm2, yielding a Baliga's figure of merit of 8.02 MW/mm2. This performance places the device among the highest values reported for conventional p-GaN gate HEMTs. Most importantly, the device exhibits exceptional threshold voltage (VTH) stability, with a minimal shift of 0.11 V at 175 °C and only 0.1 V drift under +7 V gate stress for 2000 s. This work validates an effective polarization-engineering strategy for developing high-breakdown, highly reliable GaN power devices for high-voltage applications.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149089887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jiayi Jiang,Xintong Li,Zhou Chen,Zhan Hu,Chenglin Sun,Fabing Li
{"title":"Reflective microcavity confinement reshapes ultrafast energy localization across water–copper interfaces","authors":"Jiayi Jiang,Xintong Li,Zhou Chen,Zhan Hu,Chenglin Sun,Fabing Li","doi":"10.1063/5.0357200","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0357200","url":null,"abstract":"The evolution of ultrafast energy localization as a femtosecond laser focus across a reflective liquid–metal interface remains incompletely understood, particularly within confined geometries. Here, we investigate the interface-crossing energy localization of femtosecond breakdown in water-filled copper microcavities using in situ emission spectroscopy. Axial focal scanning reveals three distinct localization modes, corresponding to direct focusing breakdown, localization collapse near the interface, and reflection-mediated relocalization, respectively. In planar reflective geometries, the breakdown emission rapidly vanishes after the focus enters the metal substrate, followed by reflection-mediated relocalization after millimeter-scale propagation. In contrast, reflective microcavity confinement maintains continuous emission enhancement across the interface region and compresses the reflective relocalization distance to approximately 200 μm. These results demonstrate that reflective confinement reshapes ultrafast energy-localization during liquid–metal interface crossing. The bottom and sidewall reflections redirect the post-interface field back into the confined liquid, suppressing the localization-collapse and enabling rapid recovery of liquid-phase breakdown.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149089943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Current-direction-controlled dynamics of skyrmion bags guided by a domain wall barrier","authors":"Xiao-Ping Ma,Hongyan Zhang,Xue-Feng Zhang,Qi Huang,Zonghao Li,Qi-Shuo Wang,Kangjie Tian,Hong-Guang Piao","doi":"10.1063/5.0346596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0346596","url":null,"abstract":"Skyrmion bags—composite spin textures consisting of a host skyrmion enclosing multiple inner skyrmions—are promising candidates for high-density magnetic storage. Due to the opposite topological charges of the host and inner skyrmions, their dynamics are considerably richer than those of isolated skyrmions. In this work, we find that during free motion, the Hall angle is nearly independent of the number of enclosed skyrmions N, for bags with nonzero total topological charge, with this near-independence becoming particularly pronounced in the large-N regime. To suppress the skyrmion Hall effect, we introduce a domain-wall barrier to guide the bag motion. When the current flows parallel to the domain wall, the bag velocity is independent of N; when perpendicular, the velocity increases monotonically with N. Thus, by tuning the current injection angle, the bag velocity can be continuously adjusted, while bags with smaller N exhibit greater stability against annihilation. Our results are in good agreement with Thiele-analysis predictions and may provide guidance for the design of skyrmion-based spintronic devices.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"38 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149088810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Patti Rizzo,Div Chamria,Johna Joseph,Felix Mo,Eric A. Muller
{"title":"Phase-resolved near-field optical microscopy approaching the shot-noise limit","authors":"Patti Rizzo,Div Chamria,Johna Joseph,Felix Mo,Eric A. Muller","doi":"10.1063/5.0348798","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0348798","url":null,"abstract":"Scattering-scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) is a powerful probe of molecular and quantum systems, using optical field enhancement at the apex of a scanning probe to provide few-nanometer resolution and sub-attomolar sensitivity. However, small sample volumes and associated small signals remain challenging. Established detection schemes rely on homodyne amplification combined with mechanical modulation of the local oscillator to remove background signals, leading to long acquisition times and increased noise. We demonstrate a detection scheme based on a balanced Mach–Zehnder interferometer that instead optically subtracts the background interference in both imaging and spectroscopy. This approach relies on subtraction of common-mode signals and also reduces optical noise in the measurement. We observe noise reduction by two orders of magnitude in the far-field, reaching shot-noise-limited detection with a low-noise light source. We demonstrate noise reduction in both near-field imaging and spectroscopy. Our new approach represents an important step toward low-noise background-free IR s-SNOM, with implications toward improved sensitivity to the weak optical response of nanoscale molecular systems.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149088819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Electronic properties and phonon-assisted optical absorption of 4H-SiC/GaN heterojunctions under strain","authors":"Qianjin Lei,Zhiheng Yang,Haijun Lou,Linli Zhu","doi":"10.1063/5.0357942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0357942","url":null,"abstract":"To elucidate the interfacial physics and optical performance limits in 4H-SiC/GaN ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors, first-principles density functional theory and many-body quasi-degenerate perturbation theory calculations are performed to quantitatively characterize the electronic properties and phonon-assisted optical absorption of 1.5–2.5-nm-thick 4H-SiC/GaN heterojunctions under in-plane strain ranging from −8% to 8%. The stable type-II heterojunctions exhibit optical absorption edges of 1.75 eV (SiN1) and 1.40 eV (SiN2). Remarkably, at the critical UV wavelength of 375 nm, the absorption coefficient of SiN1 reaches 2.72 ×105 cm−1, substantially outperforming those of bulk GaN (2.21 ×105 cm−1 ) and 4H-SiC (5.44 ×103 cm−1 ). Furthermore, biaxial strain induces pronounced asymmetric spectral tunability: 8% tensile strain drives a large 1.14 eV redshift (extending the absorption edge to 0.63 eV) and boosts the 375-nm absorption coefficient to 6.27 ×105 cm−1 , whereas −8% compressive strain causes a 0.41 eV blueshift up to 2.18 eV. In contrast, uniaxial strain yields a noticeably weaker modulation effect. These quantitative findings elucidate the microscopic optoelectronic mechanisms governed by interfacial polarization, spatial charge separation, and the quantum-confined Stark effect, establishing fundamental design principles for strain-tunable UV photodetectors operating in extreme environments.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149089158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
M. Dell'Andrea,R. Fraccaroli,S. L. Longato,M. Fregolent,C. De Santi,I. Rossetto,M. Boito,A. Pirani,G. Pizzo,C. Miccoli,A. Russo,M. E. Castagna,F. Iucolano,G. Meneghesso,E. Zanoni,M. Meneghini
{"title":"Sustainable breakdown in sub-micrometer E-mode GaN HEMTs: Impact of gate bias and process-driven optimization","authors":"M. Dell'Andrea,R. Fraccaroli,S. L. Longato,M. Fregolent,C. De Santi,I. Rossetto,M. Boito,A. Pirani,G. Pizzo,C. Miccoli,A. Russo,M. E. Castagna,F. Iucolano,G. Meneghesso,E. Zanoni,M. Meneghini","doi":"10.1063/5.0347615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0347615","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the sustainable breakdown operation of lateral E-mode GaN high-electron mobility transistors. First, the dependence of the sustainable breakdown voltage (Vaval) on gate bias was investigated; a reduction in Vaval was observed at increased gate voltage, and ascribed to the progressively increasing sub-threshold conduction. Evidence for hole trapping under the gate was then obtained, by monitoring the threshold voltage variation during the test, and a dedicated measurement routine was used to prove the recombination of trapped electrons with holes generated by impact ionization. Finally, technological solutions to improve the sustainable breakdown characteristics of the devices are proposed and validated, through the analysis of two different process splits.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"151 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149088785","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Performance-enhanced ferroelectric domain wall pyroelectric detector of X-cut thin-film LiNbO3 on insulator","authors":"Xiangyu Gao,Hao Luo,Hui Xia,Jianjun Lai,Changhong Chen","doi":"10.1063/5.0334115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0334115","url":null,"abstract":"Here, we demonstrate a longwave infrared pyroelectric detector of X-cut thin-film LiNbO3 on insulator, of which the performance is enhanced by a geometry-engineered coplanar electrode antenna, to harvest the infrared radiation from strong near-field confinement, and conductive domain-walls (DWs) from initial surface ferroelectric polar reversal to provide a pathway for efficiently collecting the pyroelectric charges. The film-constructed device in the surface DW structure behaves like a bulk one with the responsivity inversely proportional to the heat capacity instead, and scaling down the ferroelectric thickness allows the responsivity and speed to be engineered independently. This work paves the way for an on-chip system of ferroelectric DW detectors monolithic with the CMOS readout circuit, which is to be fabricated using the wafer's handle layer.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149088816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jingke Xu,Jeonghwa Kim,Duncan Adams,Brian G. Lenardo,W. Hugh Lippincott,Rouven Essig
{"title":"Nuclear recoil Migdal effect in liquid xenon dark matter experiments","authors":"Jingke Xu,Jeonghwa Kim,Duncan Adams,Brian G. Lenardo,W. Hugh Lippincott,Rouven Essig","doi":"10.1063/5.0346148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0346148","url":null,"abstract":"The Migdal effect predicts that a nuclear recoil (NR) can be accompanied by detectable atomic ionization or excitation signals, even at the low energies expected from interactions of sub-GeV dark matter particles with atomic nuclei. Liquid xenon-based dark matter experiments have projected substantial sensitivity gains to light dark matter based on this effect, underscoring the importance of its direct characterization in xenon. In this Letter, we draw on our theoretical and experimental studies of NR Migdal interactions to discuss their predicted characteristics and corresponding observable signatures in liquid xenon detectors. We examine the challenges of directly observing Migdal signals using neutron-induced xenon recoils and outline possible measurement strategies and necessary background mitigation measures to allow a definitive confirmation of the Migdal effect in liquid xenon.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149088794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
H. Naskath Sithara,E. Vinoth,R. Abimaheshwari,M. Navaneethan,J. Archana
{"title":"Tensile-strain-engineered electron–phonon coupling for high-performance\u0000 n\u0000 -MoS2/\u0000 p\u0000 -Si photodetector","authors":"H. Naskath Sithara,E. Vinoth,R. Abimaheshwari,M. Navaneethan,J. Archana","doi":"10.1063/5.0333804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0333804","url":null,"abstract":"Strain induced in multilayered molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) opens a new avenue for carrier dynamics, enabling the development of high-performance optoelectronic devices, including photodetectors. The strong electron–phonon coupling (EPC) can be effectively modulated through intercalation-induced strain engineering. Ion exchange between the intercalant and MoS2 leads to interlayer expansion and lattice distortion, providing an effective route to modulate strain. Hence, here, alkali ion (Mg2+) was initially intercalated in the precursor and subsequently grown on p-Si to n-MoS2/p-Si photodetector, facilitating efficient charge transfer. The redshift of E2g1 and A1g Raman modes in n-MoS2/p-Si indicated the presence of tensile strain, which weakens the EPC in the intercalated MoS2 layer. This strain-induced suppression of the EPC enhances the carrier mobility by approximately 2.6 times and reduces the carrier transit time to about one-fourth of that in the pristine structure. These synergic characteristics make n-MoS2/p-Si an excellent photodetector with fast response and good recovery of 0.9 s (photocyclability) over five cycles and good responsivity of 0.31 A/W. In addition to this, the external quantum efficiency of about 37% is observed for the fabricated photodetector.","PeriodicalId":8094,"journal":{"name":"Applied Physics Letters","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":4.0,"publicationDate":"2026-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149089154","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}