Silicon, the leading material in microelectronics during the last four decades, also promises to be the key material in the future. Despite many claims that silicon technology has reached fundamental limits, the performance of silicon microelectronics continues to improve steadily. The same holds for almost all the applications for which Si was considered to be unsuitable. The main exception to this positive trend is the silicon laser, which has not been demonstrated to date. The main reason for this comes from a fundamental limitation related to the indirect nature of the Si band-gap. In the recent past, many different approaches have been taken to achieve this goal: dislocated silicon, extremely pure silicon, silicon nanocrystals, porous silicon, Er doped Si-Ge, SiGe alloys and multiquantum wells, SiGe quantum dots, SiGe quantum cascade structures, shallow impurity centers in silicon and Er doped silicon. All of these are abundantly illustrated in the present book.

Inhalt

Preface. Photograph of Participants. Introduction. Part I: Light emitting diodes. High efficiency silicon light emitting diodes; M.A. Green, et al. Dislocation-based silicon light emitting devices; M.A. Lourenço, et al. Efficient electroluminescence in alloyed silicon diodes; O.B. Gusev, et al. Light emitting devices based on silicon nanocrystals; A. Irrera, et al. Optical and electrical characteristics of LEDs fabricated from Si-nanocrystals embedded in SiO2; B. Garrido, et al. Electroluminescence in Si/SiO2 Layers; L. Heikkilö, et al. Reverse biased porous silicon light emitting diodes; S. Lazarouk. Strong blue light emission from ion implanted Si/SiO2 structures; W. Skorupa, et al. Si/Ge nanostructures for LED; G.E. Cirlin, et al. Part II: Silicon nanocrystals. Optical spectroscopy of single silicon quantum dots; J. Valenta, et al. Luminescence from Si/SiO2 nanostructures; Y. Kanemitsu. Electronic and dielectric properties of porous silicon; D. Kovalev, J. Diener. Silicon technology used for size-controlled silicon nanocrystals; M. Zacharias, et al. Structural and optical properties of silicon nanocrystals embedded in Silicon Oxide films; M. Miu, et al. Part III: Optical gain in silicon nanocrystals. Stimulated emission in silicon nanocrystals; L. Dal Negro, et al. Lasing effects in ultrasmall silicon nanoparticles; M.H. Nayfeh. On fast optical gain in silicon nanostructures; L. Khriachtchev, M. Räsänen. Experimental observation of optical amplification in silicon nanocrystals; M. Ivanda, et al. Optical amplification in nanocrystalline silicon superlattices; P.M. Fauchet, Jinhao Ruan.Optical gain from silicon nanocrystals: a critical perspective; A. Polman, R.G. Elliman. Optical gain measurements with variable stripe length technique; J. Valenta, et al. Part IV: Theory of silicon nanocrystals. Theory of silicon nanocrystals; C. Delerue, et al. Gain theory and models in silicon nanostructures; S. Ossicini, et al. Part V: Silicon/Germanium quantum dots and quantum cascade structures. Si-Ge quantum dot laser: What can we learn from III-V experience? N.N. Ledentsov. Promising SiGe superlattice and quantum well laser candidates; G. Sun, et al. Optical properties of arrays of Ge/Si quantum dots in electric field; A.V. Dvurechenskii, A.I. Yakimov. MBE of Si-Ge heterostructures with Ge nanocrystals; P.P. Pchelyakov, et al. Strain compensated Si/SiGe quantum cascade emitters grown on SiGe pseudosubstrates; L. Diehl, et al. Part VI: Terahertz silicon laser. Terahertz silicon laser: Intracenter optical pumping; S.G. Pavlov, et al. Silicon lasers based on shallow donor centers: Theoretical background and experimental results; V.N. Shastin, et al. Resonant states in modulation doped SiGe Heterostructures as a source of THz lasing; A.A. Prokofiev, et al. THz lasing of strained p-Ge and Si/Ge structures; M.S. Kagan. Terahertz emission from Silicon-Germanium quantum cascade; R.W Kelsall, et al. Part VII: Optical gain in Er doped Si nanocrystals. Towards an Er-doped Si nanocrystal sensitized waveguide laser: The thin line between gain and loss; P.G. Kik, A. Polman. Optical gain using nanocrystal sensitized Erbium; Jung H. Shin, et al. Excitation mechanism of Er photoluminescence in bulk Si and SiO2 with nanocryst