Photoluminescence from silicon dioxide photonic crystal cavities with embedded silicon nanocrystals

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates silicon dioxide nanobeam photonic crystal cavities embedded with silicon nanocrystals, achieving high quality factors and observing visible photoluminescence, with insights into their lossy characteristics at different conditions.

Contribution

It reports the fabrication and characterization of silicon dioxide photonic crystal cavities with embedded silicon nanocrystals, including experimental and theoretical quality factor analysis.

Findings

Quality factors over 9,000 achieved

Photoluminescence observed in 600-820 nm range

Free carrier absorption significant at low pump powers

Abstract

One dimensional nanobeam photonic crystal cavities are fabricated in silicon dioxide with silicon nanocrystals. Quality factors of over 9 x 10^3 are found in experiment, matching theoretical predictions, with mode volumes of 1.5(lambda/n)^3 . Photoluminescence from the cavity modes is observed in the visible wavelength range 600-820 nm. Studies of the lossy characteristics of the cavities are conducted at varying temperatures and pump powers. Free carrier absorption effects are found to be significant at pump powers as low as a few hundred nanowatts.