Silicon Optoelectronic Outlook Brightens.

Electronic Materials Update, July, 2003

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have found that silicon may be able to emit more light than previously thought. This result, recently reported in Applied Physics Letters, opens up the possibility of using the semiconductor industry's workhorse material in optoelectronics.

For years, bulk crystalline silicon has been regarded as a poor light emitter due to its indirect bandstructure. So far, efforts to improve its optical properties have centered on modifying the bulk silicon, for example by making it porous.

However, Martin Green and his colleagues at UNSW have come up with a new approach by paying more careful attention to the silicon surface. The researchers realized that surface recombination of electrons and holes can affect the...