G. Franzò

Correlation between luminescence and structural properties of Si nanocrystals

Strong room-temperature photoluminescence (PL) in the wavelength range 650–950 nm has been observed in high temperature annealed (1000–1300 °C) substoichiometric silicon oxide (SiOx) thin films prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. A marked redshift of the luminescence peak has been detected by increasing the Si concentration of the SiOx films, as well as the annealing temperature. The integrated intensity of the PL peaks spans along two orders of magnitude, and, as a general trend, increases with the annealing temperature up to 1250 °C. Transmission electron microscopy analyses have demonstrated that Si nanocrystals (nc), having a mean radius ranging between 0.7 and 2.1 nm, are present in the annealed samples. Each sample is characterized by a peculiar Si nc size distribution that can be fitted with a Gaussian curve; by increasing the Si content and/or the annealing temperature of the SiOx samples, the distributions become wider and their mean value increases. The strong correlation betw...

Room‐temperature electroluminescence from Er‐doped crystalline Si

We have obtained room‐temperature electroluminescence (EL) at ∼1.54 μm from Er and O co‐doped crystalline p‐n Si diodes fabricated by ion implantation, under both forward and reverse bias conditions. Under forward bias, the EL intensity decreases by a factor of ∼15 on going from 110 to 300 K, where a weak peak is still visible. In contrast, we report the first sharp luminescence peak obtained under reverse bias conditions in the breakdown regime. In this case the EL intensity decreases only by a factor of 4 on going from 110 to 300 K and the room‐temperature yield is more than one order of magnitude higher than under forward bias. The data suggest that Er excitation occurs through electron‐hole mediated processes under forward bias and through impact excitation under reverse bias.

Role of the energy transfer in the optical properties of undoped and Er-doped interacting Si nanocrystals

In this article the luminescence properties of Si nanocrystals (nc) formed by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition and their interaction with Er ions introduced by ion implantation are investigated in detail. Si nc with different size distributions and densities were produced and all show quite intense room temperature luminescence (PL) in the range 700–1100 nm. It is shown that the time-decay of the luminescence follows a stretched exponential function whose shape tends towards a single exponential for almost isolated nc. This suggests that stretched exponential decays are related to the energy transfer from smaller towards larger nc. Indeed, by comparing samples with similar nc size distributions, but with very different nc densities, it is demonstrated that the PL has a quite strong redshift in the high density case, demonstrating a clear energy redistribution within the sample. Excitation cross sections have been measured in all samples yielding a value of ∼1.8×10−16 cm2 for isolated nc excited w...

Quantum confinement and recombination dynamics in silicon nanocrystals embedded in Si/SiO2 superlattices

In this study the structural and optical properties of nanocrystalline Si/SiO2 superlattices have been investigated and discussed. Ordered planar arrays of silicon nanocrystals (Si-nc) have been formed by thermal annealing of ten period amorphous Si/SiO2 superlattices prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Thermal processing of the superlattices results in well separated (by about 5 nm of SiO2) nanocrystalline Si layers, when the annealing temperature does not exceed 1200 °C. The photoluminescence (PL) properties of these layers have been studied in details. The PL peaks wavelength has been found to depend on the laser pump power; this intriguing dependence, consisting in a marked blueshift for increasing power, has been explained in terms of the longer lifetime characterizing larger Si-nc. It is also observed that these decay lifetimes exhibit a single exponential behavior over more than two orders of magnitude, in clear contrast with the typical, nonsingle exponential trends observed for...

The erbium‐impurity interaction and its effects on the 1.54 μm luminescence of Er3+ in crystalline silicon

We have studied the effect of erbium‐impurity interactions on the 1.54 μm luminescence of Er3+ in crystalline Si. Float‐zone and Czochralski‐grown (100) oriented Si wafers were implanted with Er at a total dose of ∼1×1015/cm2. Some samples were also coimplanted with O, C, and F to realize uniform concentrations (up to 1020/cm3) of these impurities in the Er‐doped region. Samples were analyzed by photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR). Deep‐level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) was also performed on p‐n diodes implanted with Er at a dose of 6×1011/cm2 and codoped with impurities at a constant concentration of 1×1018/cm3. It was found that impurity codoping reduces the temperature quenching of the PL yield and that this reduction is more marked when the impurity concentration is increased. An EPR spectrum of sharp, anisotropic, lines is obtained for the sample codoped with 1020 O/cm3 but no clear EPR signal is observed without this codoping. The spectrum for the magnetic...

Electroluminescence at 1.54 μm in Er-doped Si nanocluster-based devices

The electroluminescence (EL) properties of Er-doped Si nanoclusters (NC) embedded in metal–oxide–semiconductor devices are investigated. Due to the presence of Si NC dispersed in the SiO2 matrix, an efficient carrier injection occurs and Er is excited, producing an intense 1.54 μm room temperature EL. The EL properties as a function of the current density, temperature, and time have been studied in detail. We have also estimated the excitation cross section for Er under electrical pumping, finding a value of ∼1×10−14 cm2. This value is two orders of magnitude higher than the effective excitation cross section of Er ions through Si NC under optical pumping. In fact, quantum efficiencies of ∼1% are obtained at room temperature in these devices.

Mechanism and performance of forward and reverse bias electroluminescence at 1.54 μm from Er-doped Si diodes

We have analyzed the mechanisms and the efficiency of the 1.54 μm electroluminescence from Er-doped crystalline Si. Optical doping of a 0.25 μm deep p+−n+ junction was achieved by multiple Er and O implants which realize a uniform concentration of 1019 Er/cm3 and 1020 O/cm3 from 0.2 to 0.9 μm from the surface. It has been found that, for the same current density passing through the device, the room temperature electroluminescence signal is 2–10 times higher under reverse bias at the diode breakdown than under forward bias. Detailed analyses of the spectrum line shape, temperature, and current density dependencies and modulation performances under both forward and reverse bias allowed us to elucidate the reasons for this difference. In forward bias, in spite of the large effective excitation cross section (>6×10−17 cm2 at 300 K), the efficiency of room temperature electroluminescence is limited by the small number of excitable sites (∼1% of the total Er concentration) and by the efficiency of nonradiative ...

Sensitizing properties of amorphous Si clusters on the 1.54-μm luminescence of Er in si-rich SiO2

In this letter, the role of amorphous Si clusters in the excitation of Er implanted in substoichiometric SiOx films will be elucidated. It will be shown that the temperature of the SiOx thermal process prior to Er implantation is crucial in determining the luminescence properties of the samples. In particular, the luminescence intensity at 1.54 μm is almost constant for SiOx samples not annealed or pre-annealed at temperatures lower than 800 °C, reaches the maximum at 800 °C, and decreases at higher temperatures. The structural properties of these samples have been studied by energy filtered transmission electron microscopy. It will be shown that for annealing temperatures lower than 1000 °C, only amorphous Si nanoclusters are present. We demonstrate that a large density of small amorphous Si clusters produces the best luminescence performance and enhances the fraction of optically active Er.

Dynamics of stimulated emission in silicon nanocrystals

Time-resolved luminescence measurements on silicon nanocrystal waveguides obtained by thermal annealing of plasma-enhanced chemical-vapor-deposited thin layers of silicon-rich oxide have revealed fast recombination dynamics related to population inversion which leads to net optical gain. Variable stripe length measurements performed on the fast emission signal have shown an exponential growth of the amplified spontaneous emission with net gain values of about 10 cm−1. The fast emission component is strongly dependent on the pumping length for fixed excitation intensity. In addition, both the fast component intensity and its temporal decay revealed threshold behavior as a function of the incident pump intensity.

Nonlinear optical properties of silicon nanocrystals grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition

The real and imaginary parts of third-order nonlinear susceptibility χ(3) have been measured for silicon nanocrystals embedded in SiO2 matrix, formed by high temperature annealing of SiOx films prepared by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Measurements have been performed using a femtosecond Ti–sapphire laser at 813 nm using the Z-scan technique with maximum peak intensities up to 2×1010 W/cm2. The real part of χ(3) shows positive nonlinearity for all samples. Intensity-dependent nonlinear absorption is observed and attributed to two-photon absorption processes. The absolute value of χ(3) is on the order of 10−9 esu and shows a systematic increase as the silicon nanocrystalline size decreases. This is due to quantum confinement effects.