Conventional agriculture often aims to achieve high returns without allowing for sustainable natural resource management. To prevent environmental degradation, agricultural systems must be assessed and environmental standards need to be developed. This study used a multi-factor approach to assess the potential environmental impact risk of six diverse systems: five production systems and a successional system or abandoned agronomic field. Assessment factors were soil quality status, amount of pesticide and fertilizer applied and tillage intensity. The assessment identified the best management practices (BMP)–conventional tillage system as a high-risk system mostly because of extensive tillage. The certified organic system was also extensively tilled and was characterized by P build-up in the soil, but performed well based on other assessment factors. Conversely, the BMP–no tillage and the crop–animal integrated system were characterized as low risk mainly because of reduced tillage. The paper discusses assessment strengths and weaknesses, ways to improve indicators used, and the need for additional indicators. We concluded that with further development the technique will become a resourceful tool to promote agricultural sustainability and environmental stewardship and assist policy-making processes.

We describe how the material properties of III–V semiconductors, including bandgap, band structure, band offset, refractive index, absorption, and ionization coefficient, are exploited for lasers and photodetectors for fiber-optic communications. The material systems discussed for 1.3 μm and 1.55 μm light emission include the more traditional GaInAsP and AlGaInAs on InP, the more recently investigated GaInAs quantum dots and low-bandgap GaInNAs on GaAs as well as GaAsSb/GaAs Type II structures, and the potentially viable GaN/AlGaN from intersubband transitions (i.e., between quantized conduction-band energy levels). As an example of photodetector applications, GaInAsP/InP and wafer-fused GaInAs/Si are discussed in terms of gain and noise factor for use in avalanche photodiodes with separate absorption and multiplication regions.

We have established a correlation between localized states responsible for mid-gap optical emission and film mobility of GaN grown under different nitrogen conditions. By imposing a deflector voltage at the tip of the plasma source, we varied the ion/neutral flux ratio to determine how N ions affect mid-gap luminescence and electrical mobility. Low energy electron-excited nanometer scale luminescence (LEEN) spectroscopy in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) showed mid-gap emission intensities in the bulk that decreased in the ratio, 50 : 1.3 : 1 with increasing deflector voltage. Hall measurements indicated over a factor of two increase in mobility, and a factor of 8 decrease in residual charge density with increasing deflector voltage. The correlation of optical and electrical properties with a reduction in N ion flux suggests the primary role of native defects, such as N or Ga vacancies, in the mid-gap emissions.

We have established a correlation between localized states responsible for mid-gap optical emission and film mobility of GaN grown under different nitrogen conditions. By imposing a deflector voltage at the tip of the plasma source, we varied the ion/neutral flux ratio to determine how N ions affect mid-gap luminescence and electrical mobility. Low energy electron-excited nanometer scale luminescence (LEEN) spectroscopy in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) showed mid-gap emission intensities in the bulk that decreased in the ratio, 50 : 1.3 : 1 with increasing deflector voltage. Hall measurements indicated over a factor of two increase in mobility, and a factor of 8 decrease in residual charge density with increasing deflector voltage. The correlation of optical and electrical properties with a reduction in N ion flux suggests the primary role of native defects, such as N or Ga vacancies, in the mid-gap emissions.

We have successfully utilized the temperature dependence of the refractive indices of various substrates (GaAs and InP) in detecting their temperature variations. The detectionwas accomplished by injecting a beam of HeNe laser (1.15 μm) toward a double-sidepolished substrate. An interference pattern developed among the reflected laser beams, and the actual temperature increment/decrement could be deduced from the interference maxima and minima. The method was first calibrated inside a diffusion furnace from room temperature up to 200ºC, and the detection resolution was found to reach as high as ±0.7ºC. The same measurement setup was later used on the temperature calibration of a substrate heater in a molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth chamber, and was finally used to detect surface temperature change during Ar+ laser assisted metalorganic MBE (MOMBE) growth. Because a direct contact is unnecessary and only the relative signal intensity is needed, this low-cost method can be applied to any otherexperiments in a fairly straightforward manner.