The Spectroscopy of Porous Silicon

Abstract
The spectroscopic evidence that the main visible photoluminescence (PL) band of porous silicon (the 'S' band) originates from quantum confined crystalline silicon is presented, and arguments that claim to invalidate this evidence are analysed in detail. We find that a careful study of all the spectroscopic data provides strong support for the quantum confinement model. Additionally we consider the interesting issue of the luminescence spectrum of a single silicon quantum dot.