Electroluminescent device based on silicon nanopillars

Abstract

Silicon nanopillars were fabricated by using deep UV lithography, highly anisotropic silicon reactive ion etching based on fluorine chemistry, and high-temperature thermal oxidation for further thinning. Pillars with a diameter below 10 nm and a height in the 0.4–0.6 μm range were obtained while lying on a very smooth bottom silicon surface. An isolating transparent polymer was then used to fill in the etched area containing the pillars and, therefore, planarize and isolate the pillars. Oxygen plasma was used in order to remove the resistance from the top of the pillars. They were then contacted by a thin contact layer (gold or indium tin oxide), evaporated on the top of them. An Ohmic contact was also formed on the back side of the wafer. The obtained device showed rectifying behavior and forward voltages exceeding 10–12 V electroluminescence was observed, visible with the naked eye.

Controllable deformation of silicon nanowires with strain up to 24%

“…High aspect ratio pillars with diameters between 50-100 nm could prove useful for core-shell type plasmonic resonators, 5 while pillars with sub-10 nm diameters have shown promising light emission characteristics. 6,7 High aspect ratio structures also have possible applications to high density electronics such as FinFETS ͑Ref. 3͒ or in DRAM devices.…”

Physical Properties and Characteristics of III-V Lasers on Silicon

“…Many approaches to improving the light emission properties of Si have been investigated. Si nanocrystals [9], porous Si [10], Si nano-pillars [11] and Si-insulator superlattices all make use of the fact that low-dimensional Si is found to emit light at increased efficiency at room temperature. Furthermore, exploitation of stimulated Raman scattering has been used to produce an optically pumped continuous wave (CW) laser operating at room temperature [12].…”

Computational Design of A New Class of Si-Based Optoelectronic Material

“…1991;Hirschman et al1996); (e) use of the optical properties of low-dimensional silicon quantum structures, such as silicon quantum wells, quantum wires and dots, may avoid indirect bandgap problem in Si ( Buda. et al, 1992); (f) use of silicon nano-crystals ( Pavesi, et al 2000;Walson ,et al 1993) ; (g) silicon/insulator superlattice ( Lu et al 1995) and (h) use of silicon nano-pillars (Nassiopoulos,et al 1996). All these methods are possible ways to achieve improved properties of silicon-based optoelectronic materials.…”