Enhanced light emission from Si nanocrystals produced using SiOx/SiO2 multilayered silicon-rich oxides

The light emission from Si nanocrystals (NCs) produced in SiO2 by annealing of SiOx/SiO2 multilayered silicon-rich oxide (SRO) is examined as a function of the SiOx layer thickness. Multilayered SRO structures are shown to produce a significant increase in emission intensities with a large redshift of spectra as compared with a single-layer SRO film. A multilayered SRO film with ∼6-nm thick SiO1.45 layers exhibits a 13-fold increase in the emission intensity with a redshift of ∼70 nm relative to a single-layer SiO1.45 SRO film with a thickness equivalent to the total SiO1.45 layer thickness in the multilayered film. The transmission electron microscopy analyses indicate that the enhancement of the emission intensity with the redshift of spectrum is caused by the enhanced aggregation of phase separated Si atoms in the former SiOx layers due to the hindering of interlayer diffusion of Si by the neighboring SiO2 layers.