Optical gain in silicon nanocrystals
Optical gain in silicon nanocrystals
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DOI：
10.1117/12.426932
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发表时间：
2000-11
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Lorenzo Pavesi;L. D. Negro;C. Mazzoleni;G. Franzò;F. Priolo
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lorenzo Pavesi;L. D. Negro;C. Mazzoleni;G. Franzò;F. Priolo
在硅微电子芯片中添加光学功能是材料研究中最具挑战性的问题之一。硅是一种间接带隙半导体，因此是一种效率低下的光发射体。为此，光学功能元件与硅微电子电路的集成在很大程度上是通过使用直接带隙化合物半导体实现的。对于光电应用，关键器件是光源-激光器。化合物半导体激光器利用诸如量子威尔斯和量子点的低维电子系统作为有源光学放大介质。在这里，我们证明了光放大是可能的，使用硅本身，在分散在二氧化硅矩阵的量子点的形式。净光学增益在波导和传输配置中均可见，其中材料增益与直接带隙量子点的材料增益具有相同的数量级。我们解释的观察使用的模型的基础上与Si/SiO2界面的辐射态的粒子数反转。这些发现为硅激光器的制造开辟了一条道路。
Adding optical functionality to a silicon microelectronic chip is one of the most challenging problems of materials research. Silicon is an indirect-bandgap semiconductor and so is an inefficient emitter of light. For this reason, integration of optically functional elements with silicon microelectronic circuitry has largely been achieved through the use of direct-bandgap compound semiconductors. For optoelectronic applications, the key device is the light source—a laser. Compound semiconductor lasers exploit low-dimensional electronic systems, such as quantum wells and quantum dots, as the active optical amplifying medium. Here we demonstrate that light amplification is possible using silicon itself, in the form of quantum dots dispersed in a silicon dioxide matrix. Net optical gain is seen in both waveguide and transmission configurations, with the material gain being of the same order as that of direct-bandgap quantum dots. We explain the observations using a model based on population inversion of radiative states associated with the Si/SiO 2 interface. These findings open a route to the fabrication of a silicon laser.