Cathodoluminescence as a method of extracting detailed information from nanophotonic systems: a study of silicon nanocrystals

Abstract

We investigated Si nanocrystal samples produced by high dose 600 keV Si + implantation of fused silica and annealing using cathodoluminescence (CL). CL spectra collected under 5-25 keV electron irradiation show similar features to reported photoluminescence spectra, including the strong near IR peak. The CL intensity distribution is formulated as a linear inverse problem and two methods namely the regularisation method and maximum entropy method can be applied to determine the depth profile without making any assumptions concerning the profile function, i.e. a free form solution. We show using simulated CL data that the maximum entropy method is the most appropriate as it preserves the positivity and additivity of the depth profile. This method is applied to experimental CL data and we have localised the spatial origin of the near IR emission to the near-surface region of the implant, 400 nm from the surface, containing the smallest Si nanocrystals.

Effects of specimen preparation on the cathodoluminescence properties of ZnO nanoparticles

“…Thus, there exist several CL reports on various nanoparticles. [11][12][13][14] However, it is very difficult to compare the luminescence efficiency of such nanoparticles since there exists no standard condition for CL observation.…”