To get high performance light emitting devices on Si platform with emission wavelength at 1.55 μm is a challenge for future Si-based opto-electronic integration chips. In this paper, we fabricated near-infrared light-emitting devices based on Er/SnO2 co-doped silica thin films. The introduction of SnO2 nanocrystals with controllable size and density not only contributes to the near-infrared light emission enhancement of Er3+ ions at 1.55 μm, but also provides an effective carrier transport channelto realize efficient and stable electro-luminescence. The corresponding devices exhibit an external quantum efficiency of 5.4% at near infrared light region and the power efficiency is about 1.52 ×10-3. Our present work lays a solid foundation for facilitating Si-based light source towards practical application in the field of optoelectronic interconnection.

Studies on the carrier transport characteristics of semiconductor nanomaterials are the important and interesting issues which are helpful for developing the next generation of optoelectronic devices. In this work, we fabricate B-doped Si nanocrystals/SiO2 multilayers by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition with subsequent high temperature annealing. The electronic transport behaviors are studied via Hall measurements within wide temperature range (30-660 K). It is found that when the temperature is above 300 K, all the B-doped Si nanocrystals with the size of 4.0 nm exhibit the semiconductor-like conduction characteristics, while the conduction of Si nanocrystals with large size of 7.0 nm transforms from semiconductor-like to metal-like at high B-doping ratios. The critical carrier concentration of conduction transition can reach as high as 2.2×1020 cm-3, which is significantly higher than that of bulk counterpart and may be even higher for the smaller Si nanocrystals. Meanwhile, the Mott variable-range hopping dominates the carrier transport when the temperature is below 100 K. The localization radius of carriers can be regulated by the B-doping ratios and Si NCs size, which is contributed to the metallic insulator transition.