Efficient room-temperature light-emitters based on partly amorphised Ge quantum dots in crystalline Si

Abstract

Semiconductor light emitters compatible with standard Si integration technology (SIT) are of particular interest for overcoming limitations in the operating speed of microelectronic devices 1-3. Light sources based on group-IV elements would be SIT compatible but suffer from the poor optoelectronic properties of bulk Si and Ge. Here, we demonstrate that epitaxially grown Ge quantum dots (QDs) in a fully coherent Si matrix show extraordinary optical properties if partially amorphised by Ge-ion bombardment (GIB). The GIB-QDs exhibit a quasi-direct-band gap and show, in contrast to conventional SiGe nanostructures, almost no thermal quenching of the photoluminescence (PL) up to room-temperature (RT). Microdisk resonators with embedded GIB-QDs exhibit threshold-behaviour and super-linear increase of the integrated PL-intensity (IPL) with increasing excitation power Pexc which indicates light amplification by stimulated emission in a fully SIT-compatible group-IV nano-system.

References in corpus (1)

• Statistical analysis of time-resolved emission from ensembles of semiconductor quantum dots: interpretation of exponential decay models

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Optical properties of an ensemble of G-centers in silicon
• Temperature-dependent photoluminescence characteristics of GeSn epitaxial layers
• Free-running Sn precipitates: an efficient phase separation mechanism for metastable GeSn epilayers
• Room-temperature lasing action in GaN quantum wells in the infrared 1.5 micron region
• Photoluminescence enhancement by deterministically site-controlled, vertically stacked SiGe quantum dots
• Single SiGe Quantum Dot Emission Deterministically Enhanced in a High-Q Photonic Crystal Resonator
• Peculiarities and evolution of Raman spectra of multilayer Ge/Si(001) heterostructures containing arrays of low-temperature MBE-grown Ge quantum dots of different size and number density: Experimental studies and numerical simulations
• The formation of intermediate layers in covered Ge/Si heterostructures with low-temperature quantum dots: a study using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy
• Investigation of Lasing in Highly Strained Germanium at the Crossover to Direct Band Gap
• Interdiffusion in Group IV Semiconductor Material Systems: Applications, Research Methods and Discoveries