Tunnel conduction regimes, white-light emission and band diagram of porous silicon–zinc oxide nanocomposites

Porous-Silicon/Zinc Oxide (PS-ZnO) nanocomposites can be processed by a combination of electrochemical etching of PS and sol-gel infiltration of ZnO, which leads to complex interfaces of ZnO permeated in the PS matrix. In this work, an approach consisting on the determination of transport mechanisms and identification of electroluminescence emission bands from the heterojunction, has been followed to derive the energy band diagram. Charge transport at room temperature has been determined in ITO/PS-ZnO/p+-Si/Al structures through current-voltage characteristics, showing that direct and Fowler-Nordheim (FN) tunneling are the main conduction mechanisms at low and high bias voltages, respectively. White electroluminescence composed of three main bands (~490, ~550 and ~620 nm) is observed at forward bias. Emission starts at a threshold voltage of 3.9±0.2 V, in coincidence with the change in conduction mechanism from direct to FN tunneling. A band diagram of the device is derived from the emission and transport properties, which is coherent with previous electronic and microstructural properties of the starting n-ZnO and p+-Si.