Light Emission from Silicon: Progress Towards Si-Based Optoelectronics: (European Materials Research Society Symposia Proceedings)

This volume contains the papers presented at Symposium B of the 1998 spring meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). The symposium attracted well over 100 scientists engaged in one common goal - that of developing efficient light emitting Si-based structures. This included various technical approaches such as porous silicon, Si nanocrystals, rare-earth doping of Si, light emitting silicides, Si-based multilayer and alloy structures and SiGe structures. In this respect, the meeting had a more multidisciplinary approach than previous meetings, the main idea being a fruitful comparison of the different techniques that would also stimulate cross-disciplinary research. Generally, presentations at the conference revealed high scientific quality and several new findings and refinements of existing techniques were disclosed. One example was the much-debated report of optical gain from a structure containing Si nanocrystals. Another example was the dramatically improved stability of derivatised porous silicon. The technique of producing porous Si microcavities has been refined such that cavities of high optical quality may now be fabricated. The latest material to emerge as a candidate for a Si-based light emitting device has been iron silicide and room temperature operation has been reported. The interest is further motivated by the prospect of obtaining direct bandgap emission. The 90 collected papers represent about 80% of the submitted papers out of more than 140 accepted abstracts. The papers have been grouped according to subject although no ordering within each subgroup has been attempted. All invited papers have been placed in the foremost section to serve as reviews in each separate field.

Table of Contents:
Chapter headings and selected papers: Preface. Invited Papers. Radiative processes in bulk crystalline silicon (G. Davies). Different Er centres in Si and their use for electroluminescent devices (W. Jantsch et al.). Field-induced functions of porous Si as a confined system (N. Koshida et al.). Porous Silicon. Strongly nonlinear luminescence in oxidized porous silicon films (H. Koyama et al.). Laser assisted chemical vapour deposition of silicon oxide layers (P. Paiva et al.). Application of stain-etched porous silicon in light emitting diodes and solar cells (D. Dimova-Malinovska). Silicon and Germanium Nanocrystals. Size dependent photoluminescence from Si nanoclusters produced by laser ablation (L. Patrone et al.). Light emitting diode structure based on Si nanocrystals formed by implantation into thermal oxide (N. Lalic, J. Linnros). Rare Earth in Silicon and Related Materials. EPR study of erbium-impurity complexes in silicon (J.D. Carey et al.). Er-doped edge emitting devices with a SiGe waveguide (C.-X. Du et al.). Erbium in silicon-germanium quantum wells (A.T. Naveed et al.). Si-based Alloys, Multilayers and Hydrogenated a-Si. XPS investigation of a-Si: H thin films after light soaking (A. Toneva et al.). Light Emitting Silicides. Electronic and optical properties of semiconducting iron disilicide (A.B. Filonov et al.). SiGe Structures and Ge Islands. Room-temperature SiGe light-emitting diodes (L. Vescan, T. Stoica). Other Light Emitting Structures. Black-body emission from nanostructured materials (P. Roura et al.). List of contributors. Subject index. Material index.