Eur. Phys. J. B 54, 315-320 (2006)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2007-00008-8

Enhanced light emission in Si-nanoclusters arrays

¹ Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Funes 3350, 7600 Mar del Plata, Argentina
² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 3, 20126,  Milano, Italy

Corresponding author: ^a eduardo.roman@mib.infn.it

Received: 12 June 2006
Revised: 18 December 2006
Published online: 13 January 2007

Abstract

An array of silicon nanoclusters aimed at producing light emission upon injection of electrons and holes from external sources is studied by Monte Carlo simulations. The conditions for obtaining a significant charge accumulation in the emitting nanoclusters are investigated as a function of array geometry and applied electric fields. It is found that if a stationary state, reached for an applied field F₀, is suddenly perturbed by a field F₁≫F₀, a significant increase in electron-hole pairs population can be obtained with respect to the case of a single field of constant intensity F₁, leading to enhanced light emission when the conductivity of the array is above 6×10^-10 [ Ω cm] ^-1. The excess population thus created gets fully recombined on the time scale of milliseconds, suggesting a device that can produce enhanced light emission in the range of kilohertz.