Light emitting properties of Si⁺ self-ion implanted silicon-on-insulator from visible to infrared band

The photoluminescence (PL) properties of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) samples, modified by the Si⁺ self-ion-implantation (SII) into Si thin film followed by annealing, have been well investigated. The well-known W-line can also be observed in SII SOI samples, its emitting behavior and structural evolution have been discussed in this article. The parallel PL pattern trend and the similar changes of temperature-dependent intensity suggest that luminescence center of I₁ and I₂ peaks located in the near-infrared band originates from the same interstitial-clusters (I_nCs). The PL peak at 1.762 eV can be ascribed to the quantum confinement (QC) from small-sized Si nanocrystals. Based on the electron spin resonance (ESR) experiments and the variation of normalized PL intensities at different annealing temperature (T_A), the neutral oxygen vacancy (NOV) [O₃≡Si-Si≡O₃] is proposed to be responsible for the blue emission of P₂ and P₃ peaks, whose intensity can be restrained by the existence of the paramagnetic E₁' defects [O₃≡Si⁺]. The density of E₁' defect is found to reduce with the increase of annealing temperature (T_A). Our results provide a useful method to identify the origin of luminescence centers and pave a way for the application of new type optical defects on silicon based light emitting devices (LEDs).