Journal
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
Volume 13, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PORTFOLIO
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30503-4
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [61874144]
- Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation [2018B030311045]
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The low quantum efficiency of silicon has been a long-standing challenge. In this study, scientists proposed a strategy to modify the carrier dynamics in silicon nanoparticles by exploiting the intrinsic excitation of carriers at high temperatures. They observed a significant improvement in quantum efficiency by injecting dense electron-hole plasma via two-photon-induced absorption.
The low quantum efficiency of silicon (Si) has been a long-standing challenge for scientists. Although improvement of quantum efficiency has been achieved in porous Si or Si quantum dots, highly efficient Si-based light sources prepared by using the current fabrication technooloy of Si chips are still being pursued. Here, we proposed a strategy, which exploits the intrinsic excitation of carriers at high temperatures, to modify the carrier dynamics in Si nanoparticles. We designed a Si/SiO2 cuboid supporting a quasi-bound state in the continuum (quasi-BIC) and demonstrated the injection of dense electron-hole plasma via two-photon-induced absorption by resonantly exciting the quasi-BIC with femtosecond laser pulses. We observed a significant improvement in quantum efficiency by six orders of magnitude to -13%, which is manifested in the ultra-bright hot electron luminescence emitted from the Si/SiO2 cuboid. We revealed that femtosecond laser light with transverse electric polarization (i.e., the electric field perpendicular to the length of a Si/SiO2 cuboid) is more efficient for generating hot electron luminescence in Si/SiO2 cuboids as compared with that of transverse magnetic polarization (i.e., the magnetic field perpendicular to the length of a Si/SiO2 cuboid). Our findings pave the way for realizing on-chip nanoscale Si light sources for photonic integrated circuits and open a new avenue for manipulating the luminescence properties of semiconductors with indirect bandgaps.
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