A MHz Modulable Si-based LED Afforded by Engineering Light-emitting Defects in Si

Abstract

AbstractWe demonstrate a Si-based light-emitting diode (LED) with MHz modulation capability containing a certain class of light-emitting defects in the active region. The emission spectra are characterized by a narrow peak centered at 900 meV (1377 nm), hereafter referred to as E-line, which is attributed to the {311} defects inherent to cubic crystals with the diamond sublattice. The luminescence intensity of the E-line was found to go through a maximum around 20K persisting above 150 K. In spite of the decay lifetimes even longer than 1μs, 31% amplitude modulation was achieved for 1-MHz rectangular pulses at 20 K while near 10-MHz bandwidth was obtained for dynamic operation with modulated pulse widths.