Laboratory for optical characterization of materials

Photoluminescence spectroscopy is a contactless, non-destructive method, which provides information about the impurity levels, bandgap, recombination mechanisms, and material quality in general. Our setup, designed and assembled by the team members, enables sensitive and high-resolution steady-state and time-resolved measurements in broad spectral (300-9000 nm) and temperature (4-300 K) ranges. The exceptionally broad spectral range allows us to investigate a wide range of physical phenomena and materials, including semiconductors, glasses, and ceramics.

Key experimental setups:

Low-temperature photoluminescence (4-300K) in the UV – visible-IR- spectral range (200 nm – 9000 nm):

• A closed-cycle Helium cryostat (Sumitomo);
• Monochromator and spectrograph: FHR 1000 and  iHR 320 (Horiba); 
• FTIR spectrometer Nicolet 5700;
• Detectors: GaAs photomultiplier with water-cooled thermoelectric coolers (R943-02, C10372-02, Hamamatsu;160-930 nm), LN cooled high-purity Ge photodiode (Edinburg Instruments EI-L, 0.8-1.8 µm), Back-illuminated UV enhanced CCD (Synapse BIUV, Horiba, 0.2-1.1 µm),  TE cooled InGaAs (Hamamatsu; 0.5-2.6 µm), LN cooled InSb (2-5.5 µm), LN cooled MCT-A (0.8-22 µm).
• Light sources: Ar (514 nm), HeCd (325 nm), HeNe (632.8 nm) and solid-state lasers of various wavelengths (473,515, 532, 650, 800, 980, 1064 nm). Passively Q-switched microchip laser PULSELAS-P-355-200 (355 nm, 532 nm, 1064 nm).

UV/Visible spectrometer 

• Specord 210 (190-1100nm) equipped with: (a) Oxford Instruments OptistatDN liquid nitrogen optical cryostat enables absorption measurements at temperatures in the range from 77K to 500K; (b) absolute and variable angle reflectance measurement attachment.