Optical properties of shuffle dislocations in silicon

Abstract

The radiative recombination processes in dislocated float zone silicon samples deformed under gigapascal stresses were studied by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The observed shuffle dislocations present a reconstructed core and their generation is accompanied by the introduction of point defects and point defect clusters, whose signature is evident in the PL spectra. A broad band around 1eV is the only PL feature which could be directly related to shuffle dislocations and it is explained conjecturing strain field induced gap changes, as confirmed by molecular dynamics simulations.