We report a feedback control method to remove grain boundaries and produce circular shaped colloidal crystals using morphing energy landscapes and reinforcement learning–based policies. We demonstrate this approach in optical microscopy and computer simulation experiments for colloidal particles in ac electric fields. First, we discover how tunable energy landscape shapes and orientations enhance grain boundary motion and crystal morphology relaxation. Next, reinforcement learning is used to develop an optimized control policy to actuate morphing energy landscapes to produce defect-free crystals orders of magnitude faster than natural relaxation times. Morphing energy landscapes mechanistically enable rapid crystal repair via anisotropic stresses to control defect and shape relaxation without melting. This method is scalable for up to at least N = 10³ particles with mean process times scaling as N^0.5. Further scalability is possible by controlling parallel local energy landscapes (e.g., periodic landscapes) to generate large-scale global defect-free hierarchical structures.

Although the 5G wireless network has made significant advances, it is not enough to accommodate the rapidly rising requirement for broader bandwidth in post-5G and 6G eras. As a result, emerging technologies in higher frequencies including visible light communication (VLC), are becoming a hot topic. In particular, LED-based VLC is foreseen as a key enabler for achieving data rates at the Tb/s level in indoor scenarios using multi-color LED arrays with wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. This paper proposes an optimized multi-color LED array chip for high-speed VLC systems. Its long-wavelength GaN-based LED units are remarkably enhanced by V-pit structure in their efficiency, especially in the “yellow gap” region, and it achieves significant improvement in data rate compared with earlier research. This work investigates the V-pit structure and tries to provide insight by introducing a new equivalent circuit model, which provides an explanation of the simulation and experiment results. In the final test using a laboratory communication system, the data rates of eight channels from short to long wavelength are 3.91 Gb/s, 3.77 Gb/s, 3.67 Gb/s, 4.40 Gb/s, 3.78 Gb/s, 3.18 Gb/s, 4.31 Gb/s, and 4.35 Gb/s (31.38 Gb/s in total), with advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques including digital equalization technique and bit-power loading discrete multitone (DMT) modulation format.

A method is reported to determine equilibrium concentration profiles and local phase behavior of colloids on multi-dimensional energy landscapes. A general expression is derived based on local particle concentration and osmotic pressure differences that are balanced by forces on colloids due to energy landscape gradients. This analysis is applied to colloidal particles in high frequency AC electric fields within octupolar electrodes, where the energy landscape can be shaped in two dimensions. These results are also directly applicable to any particles having induced dipoles in spatially non-uniform electromagnetic fields. Predictions based on modeling colloids with an effective hard disk equation of state indicate inhomogeneous solid and fluid states coexisting on different shaped energy landscapes including multiple minima. Model predictions show excellent agreement with time-averaged Brownian dynamic simulations at equilibrium. Findings demonstrate a general approach to understand colloidal phase behavior on energy landscapes due to external fields, which could enable control of colloidal microstructures on morphing energy landscapes and the inverse design of fields to assemble hierarchically structured colloidal materials.

Simulations and experiments are reported for nonequilibrium steady-state assembly of small colloidal crystal clusters in rotating magnetic fields vs frequency and amplitude. High-dimensional trajectories of particle coordinates from image analysis of experiments and from Stokesian Dynamic computer simulations are fit to low-dimensional reaction coordinate based Fokker-Planck and Langevin equations. The coefficients of these equations are effective energy and diffusivity landscapes that capture configuration-dependent energy and friction for nonequilibrium steady-state dynamics. Two reaction coordinates that capture condensation and anisotropy of dipolar chains folding into crystals are sufficient to capture high-dimensional experimental and simulated dynamics in terms of first passage time distributions. Our findings illustrate how field-mediated nonequilibrium steady-state colloidal assembly dynamics can be modeled to interpret and design pathways toward target microstructures and morphologies.

GaN based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are subjected to a large polarization-related built-in electric field in c-plane InGaN multiple quantum well (MQW) during growth, which causes the reduction of emission efficiency. To mitigate the electric field, a superlattice layer with a numerous good characteristics, such as a small thickness, a high crystalline quality, is embedded in the epitaxial structure of LED. However, the effect of the superlattice thickness on the properties of LED is not fully understood. In this paper, two blue-LED MQW thin film structures with different thickness values of InGaN/GaN superlattice inserted between n-GaN and MQW, are grown on Si (111) substrates by metal-organic chemical vapor deposition. Electronic and optical properties of the two kinds of samples are investigated. The obtained results are as follows. 1) Comparing two samples, it is observed that more serious reverse-bias leakage current exists in the one with thicker superlattice; 2) Room temperature electroluminescence (EL) measurement shows that the emission spectrum peak between two samples is blue-shifted to different extents as the injection current increases. With superlattice thickness increasing, the extent to which the peak is blue-shifted decreases. Nevertheless, there is no obvious discrepancy in the EL intensity between two samples with different thickness values at 300 K. In addition, the V-shaped pit characteristics including density and size, and the dislocation densities of two samples are studied by high-resolution X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, and transmission electron microscope. The experimental data reveal that the reason for a tremendously different in reverse-bias leakage current between two samples is that there are larger and more V-pits in the superlattice sample with a large thickness. Whereas, V-pits also act as preferential paths for carriers, resulting in the fact that the thicker superlattice suffers more serious reverse-bias leakage current. According to reciprocal space X-ray diffraction intensity around the asymmetrical (105) for GaN measurement, the relaxed degree of InGaN quantum well on GaN is proportional to the superlattice thickness. On the other hand, it is useful for increasing superlattice thickness to reduce a huge stress in c-plane InGaN. Owing to joint effects of above factors, the EL intensities of the superlattice sample with different thickness values are almost identical. Our results show the functions of superlattice thickness in electronic and optical characteristics. What is more, the conclusions obtained in the present research indicate the practical significance for improving the performances of LED.