A silicon/iron-disilicide light-emitting diode operating at a wavelength of 1.5 mu m
A silicon/iron-disilicide light-emitting diode operating at a wavelength of 1.5 mu m
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DOI：
10.1038/42667
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发表时间：
1997-06-12
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Homewood, KP
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Leong, D;Harry, M;Homewood, KP
虽然硅一直是大多数微电子应用的首选材料，但它是一种较差的发光体（具有“间接”带隙的结果），因此阻碍了集成硅光电子器件的开发。该问题已经激发了许多开发具有良好发光特性的硅基结构的尝试（1），特别是在波长上例如，硅-锗超晶格结构（2）可以产生具有在类似于1.5 μ m处发射的伪直接带隙的材料，以及用铒掺杂硅（3）引入了具有类似发射波长的内部光学跃迁，尽管这两种方法都没有导致实际的器件。在这种情况下，β-二硅化铁作为光学活性材料引起了最近的兴趣（4-12），直接带隙材料，可能是与现有的硅加工技术兼容，在这里，我们报告的发光器件的实现，在1.5 μ m的操作，将β-FeSi 2到传统的硅双极结。我们认为，这一结果表明β-FeSi 2作为硅基光电技术的重要候选者的潜力。
Although silicon has long been the material of choice for most microelectronic applications, it is a poor emitter of light (a consequence of having an 'indirect' bandgap), so hampering the development of integrated silicon optoelectronic devices, This problem has motivated numerous attempts to develop silicon-based structures with good light-emission characteristics(1), particularly at wavelengths (similar to 1.5 mu m) relevant to optical fibre communication, For example, silicon-germanium superlattice structures(2) can result in a material with a pseudo-direct bandgap that emits at similar to 1.5 mu m, and doping silicon with erbium(3) introduces an internal optical transition having a similar emission wavelength, although neither approach has led to practical devices, In this context, beta-iron disilicide has attracted recent interest(4-12) as an optically active, direct-bandgap material that might be compatible with existing silicon processing technology, Here we report the realization of a light-emitting device operating at 1.5 mu m that incorporates beta-FeSi2 into a conventional silicon bipolar junction. We argue that this result demonstrates the potential of beta-FeSi2 as an important candidate for a silicon-based optoelectronic technology.