Silicon emission technologies based on nanocrystals

全球半导体市场的价值约为1万亿美元，其中90%以上是基于硅的。在过去的40年里，硅在许多方面推动了世界经济的增长，并产生了无与伦比的文化影响。鉴于目前对硅制造的承诺水平及其在智力投资和铸造成本方面与其他系统的集成，这在可预见的未来不太可能改变。硅几乎用于所有的电子电路。然而，有一个领域的电子产品，目前，硅不能用来填补，这是在发光。硅通常不能发光，但目前几乎所有的电信和互联网数据传输都是通过光纤传输的光来完成的。因此，每个人家里的信号都是由硅编码的，然后通过电线传输到一个站，在那里，其他（昂贵的）组件联合收割机将这些信号组合起来，然后通过光纤发送光。如果有便宜的硅光发射器，光纤就可以进入每个人的家庭，进出我们家庭的数据速率将大大增加。此外，电路板上的芯片之间甚至芯片内部的连接可以使用光而不是电来执行。申请人打算在英国成立一个财团，并与国际研究小组合作，使用称为纳米晶体的微小硅块使硅发光。这些纳米晶体可以发射可见光，并且可以通过向其中添加铒原子来使其发射红外线。曼彻斯特、伦敦和吉尔福德的一些技术将被应用于这种硅芯片，以了解光的发射，并试图制造出当电流通过时会发光的硅芯片。这将创造一个多功能的硅光学平台，应用于电信，太阳能和安全通信。这项技术将由申请人使用高科技初创公司进行商业化。

The global semiconductor market has a value of around $1trillion, over 90% of which is silicon based. In many senses silicon has driven the growth in the world economy for the last 40 years and has had an unparalleled cultural impact. Given the current level of commitment to silicon fabrication and its integration with other systems in terms of intellectual investment and foundry cost this is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. Silicon is used in almost all electronic circuitry. However, there is one area of electronics that, at the moment, silicon cannnot be used to fill; that is in the emission of light. Silicon cannot normally emit light, but nearly all telecommunications and internet data transfer is currently done using light transmitted down fibre optics. So in everyones home signals are encoded by silicon and transmitted down wires to a station where other (expensive) components combine these signals and send light down fibres. If cheap silicon light emitters were available, the fibre optics could be brought into everyones homes and the data rate into and out of our homes would increase enormously. Also the connection between chips on circuit boards and even within chips could be performed using light instead of electricity. The applicants intend to form a consortium in the UK and to collaborate with international research groups to make silicon emit light using tiny clumps of silicon, called nanocrystals;. These nanocrystals can emit light in the visible and can be made to emit in the infrared by adding erbium atoms to them. A number of techniques available in Manchester, London and Guildford will be applied to such silicon chips to understand the light emission and to try to make silicon chips that emit light when electricity is passed through them. This will create a versatile silicon optical platform with applications in telecommunications, solar energy and secure communications. This technology would be commercialised by the applicants using a high tech start-up commpany.