Light Emission from Silicon, Progress Towards Si-based Optoelectronics

Book excerpt: This volume contains the papers presented at Symposium B of the 1998 spring meeting of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). The symposium attracted well over 100 scientists engaged in one common goal - that of developing efficient light emitting Si-based structures. This included various technical approaches such as porous silicon, Si nanocrystals, rare-earth doping of Si, light emitting silicides, Si-based multilayer and alloy structures and SiGe structures. In this respect, the meeting had a more multidisciplinary approach than previous meetings, the main idea being a fruitful comparison of the different techniques that would also stimulate cross-disciplinary research. Generally, presentations at the conference revealed high scientific quality and several new findings and refinements of existing techniques were disclosed. One example was the much-debated report of optical gain from a structure containing Si nanocrystals. Another example was the dramatically improved stability of derivatised porous silicon. The technique of producing porous Si microcavities has been refined such that cavities of high optical quality may now be fabricated. The latest material to emerge as a candidate for a Si-based light emitting device has been iron silicide and room temperature operation has been reported. The interest is further motivated by the prospect of obtaining direct bandgap emission. The 90 collected papers represent about 80% of the submitted papers out of more than 140 accepted abstracts. The papers have been grouped according to subject although no ordering within each subgroup has been attempted. All invited papers have been placed in the foremost section to serve as reviews in each separate field.