FULL-COLOR PHOTO- AND ELECTRO-LUMINESCENCE FROM HYDROGENATED AMORPHOUS SILICON CARBIDE FILMS PREPARED BY USING ORGANIC SOURCE

Abstract

A series of hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbide (a-Si1-xCx:H) films (0 < x ≤ 1) were grown by using an organic source, xylene (C8H10), instead of methane (CH4) in a conventional plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system. The optical band gap of these samples was altered over a wide range by changing the gas ratio of C8H10 to SiH4, the maximum value can be reached as high as 3.6eV. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements were carried out at room temperature by using a Xe lamp as an excitation light. It was found that the PL peak is blue shifted with increasing optical band gap. The xylene-based a-SiC:H electro-luminescence (EL) device structure was also fabricated and room temperature EL behavior was investigated. It was found that the EL peak depended on the band gap of a-C:H films and a stable emission can be obtained by using the suitable structure parameters.