Luminescent properties of visible and near-infrared emissions from porous silicon prepared by the anodization method

Abstract

Luminescent properties of anodized porous Si are experimentally investigated. An extremely long decay time together with a peculiar temperature dependence due to the competing Auger process are observed for the visible luminescence band indicating an analogous recombination mechanism to that of electron-hole pairs being trapped at spatially separated tail states in a-Si:H. Besides this visible luminescence, an intense emission is also detected in the infrared region around 1.1 eV. Its decay time is shorter than that of the visible band and possible recombination mechanisms are discussed.