Intense white luminescence in ZnTe embedded porous silicon

TL;DR

This paper reports the embedding of ZnTe nanocrystals into porous silicon, resulting in intense visible-range photoluminescence at room temperature, due to the nanocrystals' size and orientation variations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of embedding ZnTe into porous silicon and demonstrates the resulting intense luminescence attributed to nanocrystal properties.

Findings

ZnTe nanocrystals embedded in porous silicon exhibit intense visible photoluminescence.

Nanocrystals of different sizes and orientations are observed and linked to the luminescence.

The embedding process is confirmed by energy dispersive spectroscopy and electron microscopy.

Abstract

Porous silicon layers were embedded with ZnTe using the isothermal close space sublimation technique. The presence of ZnTe was demonstrated using cross-sectional energy dispersive spectroscopy maps. ZnTe embedded samples present intense room temperature photoluminescence along the whole visible range. We ascribe this PL to ZnTe nanocrystals of different sizes grown on the internal pore surface. Such crystals, with different orientations and sizes, were observed in transmission electron microscopy images, while transmission electron diffraction images of the same regions reveal ZnTe characteristic patterns.