Excitons bounded around In-rich antiphase boundaries
Abstract
With the combination of the mature silicon-microelectronic technology and the advantages of optical data processing, silicon photonics becomes more and more essential for future low-cost, high-speed technology[1]. The antiphase boundaries (APBs), which are believed to be detrimental defects for optical devices, have always been seen as one of the tough hurdles for the development of silicon photonics[2]. However, in this work we provided a new insight into the APBs which are involved in an efficient luminescence process. Temperature-and power-dependent photoluminescence (PL), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) elemental mapping techniques have been employed for a thorough analysis of APBs' contribution to optical and structural properties of an InGaP/SiGe/Si sample. The main PL peak is attributed to the recombination of excitons bounded around the neutralized In-rich APBs[3], which behave as vertical nanostructures. This scenario is in good correlation with previous theoretical works[4].