Assessing lateral thinking: validity, reliability, and universality using a novel verbal test

Lateral thinking, a key component of creative thinking, is crucial in problem-solving, scientific discovery, and everyday life. However, its assessment remains challenging due to its elusive nature. This study proposes and validates a novel verbal test to objectively measure lateral thinking. The test, consisting of triads of words with subtle associations, requires subjects to find commonalities between seemingly unrelated concepts. The study involves three groups: two student groups and one engineering group. Statistical analysis reveals that the test demonstrates validity, reliability, and representativeness. Notably, the probability distribution of the measured parameter shows low deviations from the normal law, suggesting that lateral thinking, like general intelligence, is a relatively universal personality trait. This work contributes to a deeper understanding of lateral thinking and provides a validated tool for its assessment, promoting creativity in education and various other fields

Design and fabrication of InAs/GaAs QD based intermediate band solar cells by quantum engineering

The efficiency of a solar cell can be substantially increased by opening new energy gaps within the semiconductor band gap. This creates additional optical absorption pathways which can be fully exploited under concentrated sunlight. Here we report a new approach to opening a sizeable energy gap in a single junction GaAs solar cell using an array of small InAs QDs that leads directly to high device open circuit voltage. High resolution imaging of individual QDs provides experimentally obtained dimensions to a quantum mechanical model which can be used to design an optimised QD array. This is then implemented by precisely engineering the shape and size of the QDs resulting in a total area (active area) efficiency of 18.3% (19.7%) at 5 suns concentration. The work demonstrates that only the inclusion of an appropriately designed QD array in a solar cell has the potential to result in ultra-high efficiency under concentration

Experimental study of the effect of local atomic ordering on the energy band gap of melt grown InGaAsN alloys

We present a study of melt grown dilute nitride InGaAsN layers by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The purpose of the study is to determine the degree of atomic ordering in the quaternary alloy during the epitaxial growth at near thermodynamic equilibrium conditions and its influence on band gap formation. Despite the low In concentration (~3%) the XPS data show a strong preference toward In–N bonding configuration in the InGaAsN samples. Raman spectra reveal that most of the N atoms are bonded to In instead of Ga atoms and the formation of N-centred In3Ga1 clusters. PL measurements reveal smaller optical band gap bowing as compared to the theoretical predictions for random alloy and localised tail states near the conduction band minimum