Abstract-Contemporary silicon light-emitting diodes in silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology suffer from poor efficiency compared to their bulk-silicon counterparts. In this letter, we present a new device structure where the carrier injection takes place through silicon slabs of only a few nanometer thick. Its external quantum efficiency of 1.4 · 10 −4 at room temperature, with a spectrum peaking at 1130 nm, is almost two orders higher than reported thus far on SOI. The structure diminishes the dominant role of nonradiative recombination at the n + and p + contacts, by confining the injected carriers in an SOI peninsula. With this approach, a compact infrared light source can be fabricated using standard semiconductor processing steps.

Abstract-The infrared light emission of forward-biased silicon diodes is studied. Through ion implantation and anneal, dislocation loops were created near the diode junction. These loops suppress the light emission at the band-to-band peak around 1.1 µm. The so-called D1 line at 1.5 µm is strongly enhanced by these dislocation loops. We report a full study of photoluminescence and electroluminescence of these diodes. The results lead to new insights for the manufacturing approach of practical infrared light sources in integrated circuits.

Electroluminescence (EL) spectra of nanoscale diodes formed after gate-oxide breakdown of n+-polysilicon/oxide/p+-substrate metal–oxide–semiconductor capacitors were measured in reverse and forward bias. The nanoscale diodes, called diode antifuses, are created by the formation of a small link between the n+-poly and the p+-substrate with the properties of a diode. A previously published multimechanism model for avalanche emission from conventional silicon p–n junctions is applied to fit the EL spectra in reverse-biased silicon-diode antifuses. The results show that the light from reverse-biased diode antifuses is caused by the same phenomena as in conventional p–n junctions. Forward-bias spectra of the diode antifuses show different shapes when lightly or highly doped p substrates are used. In the case of a lightly doped p substrate, the EL intensity in the forward mode is increased by about two orders of magnitude in the visible-wavelength range with a maximum intensity in the infrared region. A phonon-assisted electron–hole recombination model is applied to fit the low-energy part of emitted spectra. The visible emission is attributed to the Fowler–Nordheim tunneling current through the SiO2, enabled presumably by electron capture into SiO2 trap levels and intraband transition of hot electrons injected into the Si bulk.

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Light emitting diode antifuses have been integrated into a microfluidic device that is realized with extended standard IC-compatible technological steps. The device comprises a microchannel sandwiched between a photodiode detector and a nanometre-scale diode antifuse light emitter. In this paper, the device fabrication process, working principle and properties and possible applications will be discussed. Changes in the interference fringe of the antifuse spectra due to the filling of the channel have been measured. Potential applications are electro-osmotic flow speed measurement, detection of absorptivity of liquids in the channel, detection of changes of the refractive index of the medium in the channel, e.g. air bubbles, particles in the liquid.