About the D1 and D2 Dislocation Luminescence and Its Correlation with Oxygen Segregation

Abstract

It is well known that the dislocation luminescence (DL) in silicon consists of four main bands, conventionally labelled D1 to D4, where E1 = 0.807 eV, E2 = 0.874 eV, E3 = 0.95 eV and E4 = 0.99 eV, of which the D1 is considered of interest for optoelectronic devices working in the third window of optical communications. Although DL has been the subject of a number of investigations in the last twenty years, still some questions remain open, concerning both the origin of the dislocation luminescence and its intrinsic or extrinsic nature. We report in this paper the results of a combination of complementary dislocation generation processes (deformation and oxide segregation) and characterisation procedures (photoluminescence and surface photovoltage), which give a strong evidence that the D1 band is correlated in a very complex manner with the presence of optically active silicon self-interstitials and oxygen clusters.