Abstract
Silicon may be king of semiconductors, but for optoelectronic devices it has the drawbacks of low photoabsorption and emission efficiency, originating entirely from its indirect band gap. However, the authors' realistic first-principles calculations indicate that direct wave-vector excitation (interband transitions between different wave numbers, without phonon assistance) can be induced simply by irradiating in the optical near field, rather than the far field. This observation would seem to suddenly remove the key stumbling block to leveraging mature silicon technologies for advances in optoelectronics.
Highlights
Silicon is the most-mature material used in semiconductor technology and has been undoubtedly leading the way in the growth of the semiconductor industry
To identify the origins of the blueshift of the absorption spectrum, we examine the optical near-field (ONF) excitation at 1.6 eV
We perform first-principles calculations of the ONF excitation of silicon, which is a typical material with an indirect-band-gap structure
Summary
Silicon is the most-mature material used in semiconductor technology and has been undoubtedly leading the way in the growth of the semiconductor industry. Electronic devices such as transistors, resistors, or a set of these components (i.e., integrated circuits), are largely based on silicon technology. There are no practical light-emitting devices made of silicon, such as light-emitting diodes.
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