Auger quenching-based modulation of electroluminescence from ion-implanted silicon nanocrystals

We describe high-speed control of light from silicon nanocrystals under electrical excitation. The nanocrystals are fabricated by the ion implantation of Si(+) in the 15 nm thick gate oxide of a field effect transistor at 6.5 keV. A characteristic read-peaked electroluminescence is obtained either by DC or AC gate excitation. However, AC gate excitation is found to have a frequency response that is limited by the radiative lifetimes of silicon nanocrystals, which makes impossible the direct modulation of light beyond 100 kb s(-1) rates. As a solution, we demonstrate that combined DC gate excitation along with an AC channel hot electron injection of electrons into the nanocrystals may be used to obtain a 100% deep modulation at rates of 200 Mb s(-1) and low modulating voltages. This approach may find applications in biological sensing integrated into CMOS, single-photon emitters or direct encoding of information into light from Si-nc doped with erbium systems, which exhibit net optical gain. In this respect, the main advantage compared to conventional electro-optical modulators based on plasma dispersion effects is the low power consumption (10(4) times smaller) and thus the inherent large scale of integration. A detailed electrical characterization is also given. An Si/SiO(2) barrier change from Φ(b) = 3.2 to 4.2 eV is found while the injection mechanism is changed from Fowler-Nordheim to channel hot electron, which is a clear signature of nanocrystal charging and subsequent electroluminescence quenching.