Physical limitations of the hot electron impact excitation mechanism in electrically driven Si-based light emitters

Electrically driven Si-based light emitters will give a major impact on the development of integrated photonic applications. However, despite the remarkable success which was achieved in the last two decades on this field none of the different Si-based light emitters of today can compete with III-V light emitters or organic LEDs in terms of efficiency and life time. In many cases the applied voltage is also uncomfortably high.
The present work explores the physical limitations of voltage downscaling for those light emitters whose electrical excitation mechanism is based on impact excitation of hot electrons. In detail, the drop down of the electroluminescence power efficiency with decreasing SiO2 thickness of Tb-implanted devices is investigated. It will be experimentally shown that there is a dark zone with an extension of about 20 nm behind the injecting interface in which the hot electrons have not yet gained enough kinetic energy in order to excite the Tb3+ luminescence centers. In addition, the replacement of the host matrix SiO2 by SiON results in a decrease of power efficiency by two orders of magnitude which is consistent with experimental data about the hot energy distribution in these media.