Study Of Transport And Electroluminescence Mechanism In The Structure Of Au/(Ge/SiO₂)/p-Si

Following the development of information technology, the rate of communication and computer can be improved if use the photon as an information carrier, and it is surely the trend to develop the optical communication and optoelectronic computer. The material of optoelectronic information is one of the extremely greatest concerns of the material. Optoelectronic integrated devices take the most important effect. At the same time, Silicon horizontal integration processes are very mature. Considering the compatibility of the technics, taking silicon material as the luminescence devices will be the perfect selection. Silicon-based material and the Silicon horizontal integration are key of GSI, Nanocrystalline silion (nc-Si) and Nanocrystalline gennanium (nc-Ge) show high potential on light-emitting devices, photodetector, optoelectronic devices and sensors.In this paper, A structure of Au/(Ge/SiO₂)/p-Si was fabricated using a radio-frequency(R.F.) magnetron sputtering system. Then the I-V characteristics and EL spectrum were measured at room temperature. Carrier transport mechanism of Au/Ge/SiO₂/p-Si structure is studied by using its I-V curve. The analysis shows that Schottky emission mechanism and ohmic conduction contribute to the current in the film under lower forward biases and lower reverse biases respectively, while the current is induced mainly by Frenkel-Poole emission mechanism and space-charge-limitted current under higher forward biases.The light centers of this structure are analyzed by using configuration coordinate, and the electroluminescence process of this structure is studied by using quantum confinement-luminescence center model. The results show that the EL of Ge/silicon oxide nanometer multilayer films originates mainly from luminescence centers of SiO₂ layers.