Hot carrier recombination model of visible electroluminescence from metal–oxide–silicon tunneling diodes

Abstract

We report the visible electroluminescence at room temperature from metal-oxide-silicon tunneling diodes. As biased in the Fowler-Nordheim regime, the electrons tunnel from the gate electrode through the ultrathin oxide and reach the Si anode with sufficiently high energy. The hot electrons cause the impact ionization, and generate the secondary hot electrons and hot holes in Si substrates. The visible light comes from the radiative recombination between the secondary hot electrons and hot holes, and the hot carrier recombination model can fit the visible electroluminescence spectra.

A 630dpi dynamic LED display array in standard Si-based CMOS technology

“…Unfortunately, for display or communication applications, recombination with phonon emission is not expected. The visible emission spectrum obtained is slightly different from those reported previously [34][35][36]. The mechanism of p-n junction electroluminescence by reverse avalanche breakdown voltage has been studied since Newman first reported it in 1955.…”

Optical Properties of Silicon Nanoparticles

“…Similarly, Walters et al [43] have demonstrated Si nanoparticle electroluminescence from AC-driven samples, where the electrons and holes were injected successively during the half-cycles of different polarity. On the other hand, impact excitation of hot carriers was proposed by Irrera et al, Valenta et al, and Liu et al as the mechanism that leads to the light emission [38,44,45]. In order to elucidate the dominant mechanism in the present devices, we have studied the bias dependence of the light emission.…”