Observation of laser oscillation in aggregates of ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles

We report laser oscillation at ∼610 nm in aggregates of ultrasmall elemental Si nanoparticles. The particles are ultrabright red emitting, dispersed from bulk Si by electrochemistry. The aggregates are excited by radiation at 550–570 nm from a mercury lamp. Intense directed Gaussian beams, with a threshold, manifest the emission. We observe line narrowing, and speckle patterns, indicating spatial coherence. This microlasing constitutes an important step towards the realization of a laser on a chip, hence optoelectronics integration and optical interconnects.

[1]  P. Braun,et al.  Si–N linkage in ultrabright, ultrasmall Si nanoparticles , 2001 .

[2]  Effect of surface reconstruction on the structural prototypes of ultrasmall ultrabright Si29 nanoparticles , 2001 .

[3]  E. Gratton,et al.  Second harmonic generation in microcrystallite films of ultrasmall Si nanoparticles , 2000 .

[4]  Luca Dal Negro,et al.  Optical gain in silicon nanocrystals , 2000, Nature.

[5]  Light-induced conductance resonance in ultrasmall Si nanoparticles , 2000 .

[6]  Enrico Gratton,et al.  Detection of luminescent single ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles using fluctuation correlation spectroscopy , 2000 .

[7]  Enrico Gratton,et al.  Stimulated blue emission in reconstituted films of ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles , 2000 .

[8]  E. Gratton,et al.  Highly nonlinear photoluminescence threshold in porous silicon , 1999 .

[9]  P. Fauchet,et al.  Very large continuous-wave-laser-induced optical absorption in porous silicon films: Evidence for thermal effects , 1998 .

[10]  M. Nayfeh,et al.  The effect of ultrathin oxides on luminescent silicon nanocrystallites , 1998 .

[11]  A. G. Cullis,et al.  The structural and luminescence properties of porous silicon , 1997 .

[12]  Photoexcitation of Si-Si Radiative Surface States in Nanocrystallites , 1997 .

[13]  Allan,et al.  Nature of luminescent surface states of semiconductor nanocrystallites. , 1996, Physical review letters.

[14]  M. Nayfeh,et al.  Quenching of porous silicon photoluminescence by deposition of metal adsorbates , 1993 .

[15]  L. Canham.  Silicon quantum wire array fabrication by electrochemical and chemical dissolution of wafers , 1990 .