InP nanocrystals on silicon for optoelectronic applications

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a scalable method to synthesize high-quality InP nanocrystals on silicon, enabling integrated optoelectronic devices with improved optical properties for silicon-based technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of ion implantation and flash lamp annealing to grow oriented InP nanocrystals directly on silicon, compatible with large-scale manufacturing.

Findings

Successful synthesis of (100)-oriented InP nanocrystals on silicon

Formation of n-p heterojunction confirmed by electrical measurements

Method compatible with existing silicon fabrication processes

Abstract

One of the solutions enabling performance progress, which can overcome the downsizing limit in silicon technology, is the integration of different functional optoelectronic devices within a single chip. Silicon with its indirect band gap has poor optical properties, which is its main drawback. Therefore, a different material has to be used for the on-chip optical interconnections, e.g. a direct band gap III-V compound semiconductor material. In the paper we present the synthesis of single crystalline InP nanodots (NDs) on silicon using combined ion implantation and millisecond flash lamp annealing techniques. The optical and microstructural investigations reveal the growth of high-quality (100)-oriented InP nanocrystals. The current-voltage measurements confirm the formation of an n-p heterojunction between the InP NDs and silicon. The main advantage of our method is its integration with large-scale silicon technology, which allows applying it for Si-based optoelectronic devices.