Visible light emission spectra of individual microstructures of porous Si

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Abstract
We have measured the spectra of visible light emitted from the individual structures of porous Si (PS) below the probe tip of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM), and found that the peak energy of the emission spectrum shifts with the size of nanometer-scale structures on the PS surface. Samples with a PS layer ∼50 nm thick were formed by anodic etching of p+Si(100) substrates (∼0.005 Ω cm). The STM images show that protrusions whose dimensions are 3–10 nm in diameter are distributed on the PS surface. The peak energy of the STM light emission spectrum shifts from ∼1.7 to ∼2.1 eV as the diameter of the structure below the STM tip decreases from ∼9 to ∼3 nm. The measured peak shift with the size of the structure is consistent with the shift of the energy gap predicted on the basis of a quantum confinement model.

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