Search results for "Silicon nanocrystal"

Enhancement of the Lifetime of Metastable States in Er-Doped Si Nanocrystals by External Colored Noise

2015

The changes in the lifetime of a metastable energy level in Er-doped Si nanocrystals in the presence of an external source of colored noise are analyzed for different values of noise intensity and correlation time. Exciton dynamics is simulated by a set of phenomenological rate equations which take into account all the possible phenomena inherent in the energy states of Si nanocrystals and Er^{3+} ions in the host material of Si oxide. Electronic deexcitation is studied by examining the decay of the initial population of the Er atoms in the first excitation level 4I_{13/2} through fluorescence and cooperative energy transfer upconversion. Our results show that the deexcitation process of th…

Self-limiting and complete oxidation of silicon nanostructures produced by laser ablation in water

2016

Oxidized Silicon nanomaterials produced by 1064 nm pulsed laser ablation in deionized water are investigated. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy allows to characterize the structural and chemical properties at a sub-nanometric scale. This analysis clarifies that laser ablation induces both self-limiting and complete oxidation processes which produce polycrystalline Si surrounded by a layer of SiO2 and amorphous fully oxidized SiO2, respectively. These nanostructures exhibit a composite luminescence spectrum which is investigated by time-resolved spectroscopy with a tunable laser excitation. The origin of the observed luminescen…

Enhancing the luminescence efficiency of silicon-nanocrystals by interaction with H+ions

2018

The emission of silicon nanocrystals (Si-NCs), synthesized by pulsed laser ablation in water, was investigated on varying the pH of the solution. These samples emit μs decaying orange photoluminescence (PL) associated with radiative recombination of quantum-confined excitons. Time-resolved spectra reveal that both the PL intensity and the lifetime increase by a factor of ∼20 when the pH decreases from 10 to 1 thus indicating that the emission quantum efficiency increases by inhibiting nonradiative decay rates. Infrared (IR) absorption and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments allow addressing the origin of defects on which the excitons nonradiatively recombine. The linear correl…

Facile synthesis of a monolith of silicon nanocrystal embedded in silica

2013

Luminescent Silicon nanocrystals produced by ns pulsed laser ablation

2013

The reduction of Si down to nanoscale introduces a peculiar visible luminescence, surprisingly for a not highly emissive material. This feature is relevant in connection with several application fields (optoelectronics, medicine) and has lead the research towards the development of production methods successful to control the physical and chemical properties of the nanosized Si so as to enhance and tune the luminescence. To this purpose, the laser ablation in liquids is particularly promising since it provides effective controlling parameters (laser photon energy, fluence, repetition rate, liquid reactivity) for the morphology and the structure of Si-related products. Here we report a study…