We experimentally demonstrate the direct-to-indirect bandgap transition of monolayer MoS ₂ under hydrostatic pressure.

Dirac-like surface states on surfaces of topological insulators have a chiral spin structure with spin locked to momentum, which is interesting in physics and may also have important applications in spintronics. In this work, by measuring the tunable helicity-dependent photocurrent (HDP), we present an identification of the HDP from the Dirac-like surface states at room temperature. It turns out that the total HDP has two components, one from the Dirac-like surface states, and the other from the surface accumulation layer. These two components have opposite directions. The clear gate tuning of the electron density as well as the HDP signal indicates that the surface band bending and resulted surface accumulation are successfully modulated by the applied ionic liquid gate, which provides a promising way to the study of the Dirac-like surface states and also potential applications in spintronic devices.

Staggered AlGaN quantum wells (QWs) are designed to enhance the transverse-electric (TE) polarized optical emission in deep ultraviolet (DUV) light- emitting diodes (LED). The optical polarization properties of the conventional and staggered AlGaN QWs are investigated by a theoretical model based on the k·p method as well as polarized photoluminescence (PL) measurements. Based on an analysis of the valence subbands and momentum matrix elements, it is found that AlGaN QWs with step-function-like Al content in QWs offers much stronger TE polarized emission in comparison to that from conventional AlGaN QWs. Experimental results show that the degree of the PL polarization at room temperature can be enhanced from 20.8% of conventional AlGaN QWs to 40.2% of staggered AlGaN QWs grown by MOCVD, which is in good agreement with the theoretical simulation. It suggests that polarization band engineering via staggered AlGaN QWs can be well applied in high efficiency AlGaN-based DUV LEDs.