Red–green–blue light emission from hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide films prepared by using organic compound xylene as carbon source

Abstract

We fabricated hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-Si1-XCX:H) films by the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique using organic compound xylene (C8H10) as the carbon source, which was initially attempted by W. A. Nevin H. Yamagishi, M. Yamaguchi, and Y. Tawada, Nature 368, 529 (1994). Here we used different preparation conditions from those authors to produce xylene-based a-Si1-XCX:H films, and a different light emission behavior of the films has been observed at room temperature. The light emission wavelength can be shifted from 630 nm to 450 nm by changing the optical band gap (Eopt) of the films from 2.3 eV to 3.5 eV, nearly covering the whole visible light range, which was never reported previously. Fourier transform infrared spectra showed that the configuration of the material was a combination of organic aromatic rings and inorganic SiC networks.