Surface Plasmon Enhanced Electroluminescence Of SiN_x Based MIS Device

Silicon, characteristics of the indirect band-gap, is not suitable using for silicon based light source. Therefore, the development of efficient light source became the key of silicon photonics.Silicon-rich silicon nitride (SiN_x) is a promising candidate material for silicon-based light source due to its good luminescence properties and compatible with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) techniques. However, the large band-gap of SiN_x and defects in SiN_x film led to low efficiency of carrier injection and recombination, resulting in a low efficiency of SiN_x-based light emitting devices (LEDs).The low power efficiency of SiN_x-based LEDs can't fulfill the demands of optical interconnections. Therefore, in this thesis the Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) of metal was used to enhance the light emitting efficiency of SiN_x-based LEDs, as well as improving the carrier injection. And we found the following results:(1) In the structure of ITO/SiO₂/SiN_x/Ag/P-Si, the Surface Plasmon Polaritons of silver islands film enhanced the radiative quantum efficiency of SiN_x. Moreover, the rough surface of Ag islands film significantly enhanced the carrier injection efficiency of the device, and the carrier transport mechanism of the device was also changed. On the other hand, the existence of rough Ag islands film led to a large surface roughness of ITO contact of the device which increased the light extraction efficiency of the device. Those factors resulted in a significant enhancement in the EL intensity of SiN_x-based LEDs. In addition, the increase of electrons injection led to an blue-shift of EL peak.(2) In the structure of ITO/Ag/SiN_x/P-Si, the increase in radiative quantum efficiency of SiN_x by coupling excitons to SSPs in silver islands film and the increase in light extraction efficiency due to the rough ITO film induced by rough Ag islands film led to an enhancement in EL intensity of SiN_x-based LEDs.