Mechanism of photoluminescence investigation of Si nano-crystals embedded in SiO_x

Nanoscaled Si (Ge) systems continue to be of interest for their potential application as Si (Ge) based light emiting materials and photonic structures. Optical properties of such systems are sensitive to nanocrystallite (NC) size fluctuations as well as to defects effects due to large surface to volume ratio in small NCs. Intensive research of Si (Ge) NCs is focused on the elucidation of the mechanism of radiative recombination with the aim to provide high efficient emission at room temperature in different spectral range. The bright visible photoluminescence (PL) of the Si (Ge)-SiOX system was investigated during last 15 years and several models were proposed. It was shown that blue (∼2.64 eV) and green (∼2.25 eV) PL are caused by various emitting centers in silicon oxide [1], while the nature of the more intensive red (1.70-2.00 eV) and infrared (0.80-1.60 eV) PL bands steel is no clear. These include PL model connected whit quantum confinement effects in Si (Ge) nanocrystallites [2-4], surface states on Si (Ge) nanocrystallites, as well as defects at the Si/SiOX (Ge/SiOX) interface and in the SiO₂ layer [5-11]. It should be noted, that even investigation of PL on single Si quantum dots [12] cannot undoubtedly confirm the quantum confinement nature of red emission.