Fabrication and luminescence properties of Si quantum dots based on Si-rich SiNx/N-rich SiNy multilayer

SiN-based multilayers were prepared in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system followed by subsequently thermal annealing and laser irradiation with the aim of fabrication three-dimensional constrained, size-controlled and well-regulated Si nanocrystals. The experimental results show that Si nanocrystals grow in the Si-rich SiN sublayer. Furthermore, the grain size can be controlled according to the thick of Si-rich SiN. It is also found that the crystalline fraction of the multilayers irradiated by laser is significantly higher than that by thermal annealing. The devices that employing the laser-irradiated multilayer as luminescent active layer exhibit an enhanced visible electroluminescence and the external quantum efficiency is improved by 40% in comparison with the device without annealing.