Light emissions from a silicon nanocrystal thin film prepared by phase separation of hydrogen silsesquioxane

We report a facile method to prepare thin film of Si nanocrystals embedded SiO2 (Si-NC:SiO2) by annealing a photoresist of hydrogen silsesquioxane (HSQ) at 1100 degrees C in nitrogen via a phase separation process. The spatial density, photoluminescence intensity, the photoluminescence efficiency and electroluminescence intensity of Si-NC of the sample made from HSQ, or HSQ sample, were 15.0, 5.5, 1.5 and 7.9 times as large as those of the sample made by a traditional method of annealing SiOx (1 < x < 2), or SiOx sample, respectively. Meanwhile, the turn-on voltage of electroluminescence of the HSQ sample was only 3.8 eV, which was more than 2 times smaller than that of the SiOx sample. The results of this work may find application in developing high brightness Si light sources.