Silicon coupled with plasmon nanocavity generates bright visible hot-luminescence

Due to limitations in device speed and performance of silicon-based electronics, silicon optoelectronics has been extensively studied to achieve ultrafast optical-data processing1–3. However, the biggest challenge has been to develop an efficient silicon-based light source since indirect band-gap of silicon gives rise to extremely low emission efficiency. Although light emission in quantum-confined silicon at sub-10 nm lengthscales has been demonstrated4–7, there are difficulties in integrating quantum structures with conventional electronics8,9. It is desirable to develop new concepts to obtain emission from silicon at lengthscales compatible with current electronic devices (20-100 nm), which therefore do not utilize quantum-confinement effects. Here, we demonstrate an entirely new method to achieve bright visible light emission in “bulk-sized” silicon coupled with plasmon nanocavities from non-thermalized carrier recombination. Highly enhanced emission quantum efficiency (>1%) in plasmonic silicon, along with its size compatibility with present silicon electronics, provides new avenues for developing monolithically integrated light-sources on conventional microchips.

[1]  W. Barnes,et al.  Surface plasmon subwavelength optics , 2003, Nature.

[2]  Di Liang,et al.  Recent progress in lasers on silicon , 2010 .

[3]  R. Berndt,et al.  Ultraviolet light emission from si in a scanning tunneling microscope. , 2007, Physical review letters.

[4]  Axel Scherer,et al.  Tunable visible and near-IR emission from sub-10 nm etched single-crystal Si nanopillars. , 2010, Nano letters.

[5]  R. W. Christy,et al.  Optical Constants of the Noble Metals , 1972 .

[6]  M. Notomi,et al.  Enhancement of spontaneous emission from the resonant modes of a photonic crystal slab single-defect cavity. , 2003, Optics letters.

[7]  P. F. Szajowski,et al.  Quantum Confinement in Size-Selected, Surface-Oxidized Silicon Nanocrystals , 1993, Science.

[8]  Toshihiko Baba,et al.  Low-threshold lasing and Purcell effect in microdisk lasers at room temperature , 2003 .

[9]  D. Englund,et al.  Controlling the spontaneous emission rate of single quantum dots in a two-dimensional photonic crystal. , 2005, Physical review letters.

[10]  Yi Xuan,et al.  An All-Silicon Passive Optical Diode , 2012, Science.

[11]  T. Gregorkiewicz,et al.  Red spectral shift and enhanced quantum efficiency in phonon-free photoluminescence from silicon nanocrystals. , 2010, Nature nanotechnology.

[12]  Sung-Wook Nam,et al.  Tailoring hot-exciton emission and lifetimes in semiconducting nanowires via whispering-gallery nanocavity plasmons. , 2011, Nature materials.

[13]  E. Palik.  Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids , 1997 .

[14]  M. Fujita,et al.  Light Emission From Silicon in Photonic Crystal Nanocavity , 2008, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics.

[15]  A. G. Cullis,et al.  Visible light emission due to quantum size effects in highly porous crystalline silicon , 1991, Nature.

[16]  Harry A. Atwater,et al.  Tuning the emission wavelength of Si nanocrystals in SiO2 by oxidation , 1998 .

[17]  Goldman,et al.  Ultrafast dynamics of laser-excited electron distributions in silicon. , 1993, Physical review letters.

[18]  T. Gregorkiewicz,et al.  Direct bandgap optical transitions in Si nanocrystals , 2009, 0901.4268.

[19]  E. Purcell,et al.  Resonance Absorption by Nuclear Magnetic Moments in a Solid , 1946 .

[20]  Wei,et al.  Phonon dispersions of silicon and germanium from first-principles calculations. , 1994, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[21]  R. Walters,et al.  Field-effect electroluminescence in silicon nanocrystals , 2005, Nature materials.

[22]  A. Sabbah,et al.  Femtosecond Pump-Probe Reflectivity Study of Silicon Carrier Dynamics , 2002 .

[23]  Tae-Soo Kim,et al.  Band gap engineering of amorphous silicon quantum dots for light-emitting diodes , 2001 .

[24]  Thomas F. Krauss,et al.  Room-temperature emission at telecom wavelengths from silicon photonic crystal nanocavities , 2011 .

[25]  Qianfan Xu,et al.  Micrometre-scale silicon electro-optic modulator , 2005, Nature.

[26]  Dynamic Measurement of Hot-Electron Magnetophonon Effect inn-InSb at 11 K , 1973 .

[27]  E. Purcell.  Spontaneous Emission Probabilities at Radio Frequencies , 1995 .

[28]  Jean-Michel Gérard,et al.  Strong-coupling regime for quantum boxes in pillar microcavities: Theory , 1999 .

[29]  C. Kittel.  Introduction to solid state physics , 1954 .

[30]  James R. Chelikowsky,et al.  ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF SILICON , 1974 .

[31]  P. Temple,et al.  Multiphonon Raman Spectrum of Silicon , 1973 .