The Effect of Temperature to the Formation of Optically Active Point-defect Complex, the Carbon G-centre in Pre-amorphised and Non-amorphised Silicon

The effect of the temperature ranging from cryogenics to room temperature were investigated on the formation of the optically-active point defect called the G-centre. The G- centre as an emissive point defect gained a lot of attention recently due to its sharp zero phonon luminescence peak at a wavelength of 1.28 μm (0.97 eV) with the evidence of lasing occurred in the structure. The emission of the G-centre is attributed to the carbon substitutional-carbon interstitial (CsCi) complex which interacts with silicon interstitials during the damage event. This complex is generated by implantation of carbon and followed by proton irradiation. Prior to the carbon implantation, two of the samples were pre-amorphised by germanium. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements were carried out at temperature ranging from 80 K up to room temperature to observe the intensity of the main peaks. The results confirm that the main peaks of point-defect centre in all of the samples including the G-centre suffer from the temperature quenching. However, the peak intensity for some of the wavelength especially the ones with high FWHM, do perform better at high temperature. The temperature quenching phenomena observed in the point-defect technique is the main problem that needs to be addressed and solved before realizing the method in the all silicon photonic system. (paper)