Highly Efficient Silicon Light Emitting Diode

− In this paper, we describe the fabrication, using standard silicon processing techniques, of silicon light-emitting diodes (LED) that efficiently emit photons with energy around the silicon bandgap. The improved efficiency had been explained by the spatial confinement of charge carriers due to a local strain field that is formed by dislocation loop arrays. The dependence of device electroluminescent properties on the annealing conditions is carefully examined as a high temperature process has profound influence on these dislocations. Increased luminescent intensity at higher device temperature, together with pure diffusion current conduction mechanism evidently shows the influence of the dislocation loops. The electrical properties of the diode are reasonable with low leakage reverse current.