title: Effect of well confinement on photoluminescence features from silicon nanoparticles embedded in an SiC/SiN(x) multilayered structure.
abstract: Light emission from a quantum well-dot structure comprising amorphous Si nanoparticles (∼1.4 nm) embedded in SiC/SiN(x) multilayers (a few tens nm thick for individual sublayers) was investigated. Strong blue-green photoluminescence was measured at room temperature on the as-deposited samples and the spectral profile shows some markedly modulated features. It displays flattened profiles of roughly equal intensity when silicon particles in both nitride and carbide sublayers can be effectively excited, whereas when the nitride sublayer is less effectively activated at longer excitation wavelength the photoluminescence is pinned (here at 500 nm), showing a rather narrow, slowly decreasing profile. The phenomenon of narrowed emission is also observed in the Si-in-SiC multilayer consisting of particles of varying size distributions. Resonance energy transfer processes among particles modified by carrier confinement may provide a reasonable explanation.
authors.affiliation: Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, PO Box 603, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Rao
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Libo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Yun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Chaorong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Cailan
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Jianping
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.forename: Zexian
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cao