title: Silicon coupled with plasmon nanocavity generates bright visible hot-luminescence.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
authors.forename: Chang-Hee
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Carlos O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Aspetti
authors.forename: Joohee
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Ritesh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Agarwal