Plasmonic Enhancement of Emission from Si-nanocrystals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how plasmonic gratings can significantly enhance the emission of silicon nanocrystals, with observed Purcell factors up to 2 and quality factors up to 16, matching simulations and varying with grating periodicity.

Contribution

It introduces the fabrication of plasmonic gratings on silicon nanocrystals and shows their effectiveness in enhancing emission through experimental and simulated validation.

Findings

Purcell enhancement up to 2 observed

Enhancement peaks vary with grating periodicity

Biharmonic gratings achieve quality factors up to 16

Abstract

Plasmonic gratings of different periodicities are fabricated on top of Silicon nanocrystals embedded in Silicon Dioxide. Purcell enhancements of up to 2 were observed, which matches the value from simulations. Plasmonic enhancements are observed for the first three orders of the plasmonic modes, with the peak enhancement wavelength varying with the periodicity. Biharmonic gratings are also fabricated to extract the enhanced emission from the first order plasmonic mode, resulting in enhancements with quality factors of up to 16.