High efficiency visible electroluminescence from silicon nanocrystals embedded in silicon nitride using a transparent doping layer

Abstract

We have fabricated light-emitting diodes with a transparent doping layer on silicon nanocrystals (nc-Si) embeded in silicon nitride matrix formed by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Under forward biased condition, orange electroluminescence (EL) with its peak wavelength at about 600 nm was observed at room temperature. The peak position of the EL is very similar to that of the photoluminescence (PL) and the emitted EL intensity is proportional to the current density passing through the device. We suggest that the observed EL is originated from electron-hole pair recombination in nc-Si. By using indium tin oxide and n-type SiC layer combination as a transparent doping layer, we obtained high external quantum efficiency greater than 1.6%.

Nanosilicon photonics

“…From the first results in which low external quantum efficiencies (about 10 −5 ) were found in both ionimplanted [155] and PECVD Si-nc samples [156], nowadays values of 0.01-0.03% have been achieved in pure Si-nc systems, while values up to 0.2-0.3% are found for devices doped with rare-earth ions. Materials with higher bandgap and higher optical transparency than SiO 2 , such as Si nitride, have also been used as host matrices [119,157,158]. Most of the LEDs proposed so far present a metal-oxidesemiconductor structure where the luminescent centers are located inside the dielectric.…”

Люминесценция солнечных элементов с гетеропереходом a-Si : H/c-Si

“…10.44626.16626 Создание светоизлучающих устройств на основе кремния является важной и актуальной задачей на протяжении многих последних лет, поскольку такие устройства хорошо интегрируются с имеющимися кремниевыми технологиями. С целью повышения эффективности фото-и электролюминесценции используются низкоразмерные кремниевые структуры [1][2][3][4][5][6], а также кремниевые структуры со специально со-зданными дислокациями [7][8][9]. Однако в последнее время появляется все большее количество работ, посвященных исследованию излуча-тельной рекомбинации в структурах, содержащих высококачественные слои монокристаллического кремния (c-Si) с большими временами жизни неосновных носителей заряда, достигаемыми за счет различных Д.М.…”

Photonic Crystal and Plasmonic Silicon-Based Light Sources

“…In these samples, the emission is enhanced relative to the emission from bulk Si because of electron-hole localization effects due to either quantum confinement or trapping to surface states [11]. In addition, significant work has been conducted to study electrical injection of the Si-NCs in both oxide and nitride systems [12]- [14]. We also explore a material system with Er in amorphous silicon nitride, which emits at the telecom wavelength of 1530 nm, ideally suited for on-chip Si photonics applications [15], [16].…”