Excitation mechanism and thermal emission quenching of Tb ions in silicon rich silicon oxide thin films grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition—Do we need silicon nanoclusters?

Podhorodecki, A.; Golacki, L W; Zatryb, G.; Misiewicz, J.; Wang, J.; Jadwisienczak, Wojciech M.; Fedus, Kamil; Wójcik, J.; Wilson, Patrick Impero; Mascher, P.

doi:10.1063/1.4871015

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…On the other hand, the additional broadband contribution is ascribed to SiO 2 defects (oxygen vacancies and/or non-bridging chemical Si-O bonds). 12,13,16 It is interesting to follow the intensity evolution of these two different contributions, as observed in Fig. 4(a): the spectra show a sudden increase of the Tb-related emission after the annealing treatment, together with the increase of the defects band emission, favoring the optical activation of both Tb 3þ ions and matrix defects.…”

Section: B Optical Emission Of Al-tb/sio 2 Filmsmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…5,9 In addition, REs have been employed to develop light-emitting silicon-based materials for optoelectronic applications. 10,11 With this aim, several works have reported on RE-doped oxides such as SiO 2 , Sirich silicon oxide, [12][13][14] or Si-rich silicon oxynitride 15 matrices as potential candidates to become active layers in lightemitting devices. The interest in determining the optical and electronic properties of the different RE species lies in the particular electronic structure they present, which allows engineering the desired emission spectra of the active layer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Blázquez

López-Vidrier

López‐Conesa

et al. 2016

Journal of Applied Physics

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Articles you may be interested inLight emitting Al-Tb/SiO 2 nanomultilayers (NMLs) for optoelectronic applications have been produced and characterized. The active layers were deposited by electron beam evaporation onto crystalline silicon substrates, by alternatively evaporating nanometric layers of Al, Tb, and SiO 2 . After deposition, all samples were submitted to an annealing treatment for 1 h in N 2 atmosphere at different temperatures, ranging from 700 to 1100 C. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed the NML structure quality, and by complementing the measurements with electron energy-loss spectroscopy, the chemical composition of the multilayers was determined at the nanoscopic level. The average composition was also measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), revealing that samples containing Al are highly oxidized. Photoluminescence experiments exhibit narrow emission lines ascribed to Tb 3þ ions in all samples (both as-deposited and annealed ones), together with a broadband related to SiO 2 defects. The Tb-related emission intensity in the sample annealed at 1100 C is more than one order of magnitude higher than identical samples without Al. These effects have been ascribed to the higher matrix quality, less SiO 2 defects emitting, and a better Tb 3þ configuration in the SiO 2 matrix thanks to the higher oxygen content favored by the incorporation of Al atoms, as revealed by XPS experiments. Published by AIP Publishing.

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Section: B Optical Emission Of Al-tb/sio 2 Filmsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Blázquez

López-Vidrier

López‐Conesa

et al. 2016

Journal of Applied Physics

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“…Some investigations have also been carried out on Tb 3+ : SiC(N) materials [8][9][10] as well as on the silicon rich silicon oxide films (Tb 3+ :SRSO) [11] with CMOS devices [12]. However, the incorporation of silicon excess in SRSO, contributing to the formation of Si nanoclusters, significantly reduced the emission intensity of lanthanide ions as a result of a strong non-radiative recombination [13][14][15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural and emission properties of Tb³⁺-doped nitrogen-rich silicon oxynitride films

Labbé¹,

An²,

Zatryb³

et al. 2017

Nanotechnology

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Terbium doped silicon oxynitride host matrix is suitable for various applications such as light emitters compatible with CMOS technology or frequency converter systems for photovoltaic cells. In this study, amorphous Tb ion doped nitrogen-rich silicon oxynitride (NRSON) thin films were fabricated using a reactive magnetron co-sputtering method, with various N flows and annealing conditions, in order to study their structural and emission properties. Rutherford backscattering (RBS) measurements and refractive index values confirmed the silicon oxynitride nature of the films. An electron microscopy analysis conducted for different annealing temperatures (T ) was also performed up to 1200 °C. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images revealed two different sublayers. The top layer showed porosities coming from a degassing of oxygen during deposition and annealing, while in the region close to the substrate, a multilayer-like structure of SiO and SiN phases appeared, involving a spinodal decomposition. Upon a 1200 °C annealing treatment, a significant density of Tb clusters was detected, indicating a higher thermal threshold of rare earth (RE) clusterization in comparison to the silicon oxide matrix. With an opposite variation of the N flow during the deposition, the nitrogen excess parameter (N) estimated by RBS measurements was introduced to investigate the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum behavior and emission properties. Different vibration modes of the Si-N and Si-O bonds have been carefully identified from the FTIR spectra characterizing such host matrices, especially the 'out-of-phase' stretching vibration mode of the Si-O bond. The highest Tb photoluminescence (PL) intensity was obtained by optimizing the N incorporation and the annealing conditions. In addition, according to these conditions, the integrated PL intensity variation confirmed that the silicon nitride-based host matrix had a higher thermal threshold of rare earth clusterization than its silicon oxide counterpart. Analysis of time-resolved PL intensity versus T showed the impact of Tb clustering on decay times, in agreement with the TEM observations. Finally, PL and PL excitation (PLE) experiments and comparison of the related spectra between undoped and Tb-doped samples were carried out to investigate the impact of the band tails on the excitation mechanism of Tb ions.

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“…As a matter of fact, this kind of transition was suggested as the excitation mechanism of Tb 3+ and Ce 3+ ions in crystalline α-Si 3 N 4 powders [37]. From this point of view, the large broadening of B3 could be due to electron-phonon coupling which is usually very strong for f-d transitions [38][39][40].…”

Section: B3mentioning

confidence: 97%

Influence of rapid thermal annealing temperature on the photoluminescence of Tb ions embedded in silicon nitride films

et al. 2019

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In this work, silicon nitride films containing terbium were deposited by reactive magnetron co-sputtering in a nitrogen enriched plasma and subjected to rapid thermal annealing treatments. The influence of annealing temperature on the emission and absorption properties of these films was investigated by photoluminescence, photoluminescence decay and photoluminescence excitation measurements. An increase in the photoluminescence intensity and photoluminescence decay time was observed upon annealing for the main 5 D 4 -7 F 5 transition of Tb 3+ ions. This observation was attributed to decrease of the non-radiative recombination and increase of the number of excited Tb 3+ ions upon annealing. Moreover, high temperature annealing was found to shift the spectral position of absorption bands observed in the photoluminescence excitation spectra. In general, these excitation spectra were shown to have a rather complicated structure and were decomposed into three Gaussian bands. It was suggested that two of these excitation bands might be due to indirect excitation of Tb 3+ ions via defects and the third excitation band could be due to direct 4f-5d transition.

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Excitation mechanism and thermal emission quenching of Tb ions in silicon rich silicon oxide thin films grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition—Do we need silicon nanoclusters?

Cited by 12 publications

References 44 publications

Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Structural and emission properties of Tb³⁺-doped nitrogen-rich silicon oxynitride films

Influence of rapid thermal annealing temperature on the photoluminescence of Tb ions embedded in silicon nitride films

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Excitation mechanism and thermal emission quenching of Tb ions in silicon rich silicon oxide thin films grown by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition—Do we need silicon nanoclusters?

Cited by 12 publications

References 44 publications

Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Structural and optical properties of Al-Tb/SiO2 multilayers fabricated by electron beam evaporation

Structural and emission properties of Tb3+-doped nitrogen-rich silicon oxynitride films

Influence of rapid thermal annealing temperature on the photoluminescence of Tb ions embedded in silicon nitride films

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Structural and emission properties of Tb³⁺-doped nitrogen-rich silicon oxynitride films