Strong and stable blue photoluminescence (PL) at room temperature has been observed from amorphous oxidized silicon nitride (a-SiNx:O) films with Ag nanoparticles inserted between a-SiNx:O films and Si substrates. The resonant excitation of localized surface plasmons (LSPs) with the emission of a-SiNx:O films has resulted in an increase in the internal quantum efficiency, from 3.9% to 8.4%. We have found that the PL efficiency ratio induced by resonant coupling is close to the enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of a-SiNx:O, which demonstrates that a-SiNx:O films with LSP-enhanced blue emission is promising for silicon-based light-emitting applications.
Nanocrystalline (nc)-Si/SiO2 multistacked floating gate have been prepared by electron beam evaporation of SiO(x) and SiO2 followed by thermal annealing. HRXTEM reveals that the density of multiply stacked nc-Si quantum dots reaches 9.1 x 10(11) cm(-2) with size of 2-3 nm. The periodicity effect of nc-Si/SiO2 multilayers on the charge storage characteristics of nc-Si floating gate is investigated carefully by using capacitance-voltage (C-V) and conductance-voltage (G-V) measurements at room temperature. It is found the charge storage ability enhances obviously with the periodicity of the multiply stacked nc-Si layer increasing from 2 to 9. The up limit of the thickness for multistacked nc-Si/SiO2 layer is less than 100 nm, which is close to the mean free path of electron in multistacked nc-Si. Charge diffusion among the multistacked nc-Si quantum dots is used to explain the charge storage and retention characteristics.
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