Photoluminescence study of an ultrathin strained silicon on insulator layer

Low temperature photoluminescence has been performed in order to analyze the strain effect on the Si band structure for an 8 nm thick tensile strained silicon layer on insulator. The authors show three phonon assisted optical transitions related to the strained silicon top layer at 0.923, 0.983, and 1.022 eV. The 0.983 eV line of the TO phonon assisted transition corresponds to a 115 meV strain induced band gap shrinkage at Δ point which agrees with the calculated values of strained silicon band gap.