• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.78-83
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• 2005

Nanometric crystalline silicon (no-Si) embedded in dielectric medium has been paid attention as an efficient light emitting center for more than a decade. In nc-Si, excitonic electron-hole pairs are considered to attribute to radiative recombination. However the surface defects surrounding no-Si is one of non-radiative decay paths competing with the radiative band edge transition, ultimately which makes the emission efficiency of no-Si very poor. In order to passivate those defects - dangling bonds in the $Si:SiO_2$ interface, hydrogen is usually utilized. The luminescence yield from no-Si is dramatically enhanced by defect termination. However due to relatively high mobility of hydrogen in a matrix, hydrogen-terminated no-Si may no longer sustain the enhancement effect on subsequent thermal processes. Therefore instead of easily reversible hydrogen, phosphorus was introduced by ion implantation, expecting to have the same enhancement effect and to be more resistive against succeeding thermal treatments. Samples were Prepared by 400 keV Si implantation with doses of $1\times10^{17}\;Si/cm^2$ and by multi-energy Phosphorus implantation to make relatively uniform phosphorus concentration in the region where implanted Si ions are distributed. Crystalline silicon was precipitated by annealing at $1,100^{\circ}C$ for 2 hours in Ar environment and subsequent annealing were performed for an hour in Ar at a few temperature stages up to $1,000^{\circ}C$ to show improved thermal resistance. Experimental data such as enhancement effect of PL yield, decay time, peak shift for the phosphorus implanted nc-Si are shown, and the possible mechanisms are discussed as well.