Influence of the temperature on the photoluminescence of silicon clusters embedded in a silicon oxide matrix

Amorphous silicon oxide thin films were prepared by co-evaporation of Si and SiO in ultra-high vacuum. Different compositions were obtained by changing the evaporation rate of silicon. After thermal annealing treatments, the dissociation of the silicon oxide in pure silicon and silicon dioxide leads to the formation of silicon clusters embedded in a silicon oxide matrix. Thus the samples were annealed to different temperatures up to 950°C. Depending on the annealing temperature and on the composition, different cluster sizes were obtained. The photoluminescence (PL) energy depends on the cluster size and a large range of wavelengths is obtained from 500 to 750 nm. The PL, attributed to a confinement effect of the electron–hole pairs in the silicon particles, is studied as a function of the temperature. It is demonstrated that the continuous decrease of PL intensity with the temperature from 77 to 500 K depends on the structure of the samples. For samples with well-separated clusters, the PL decreases rapidly with the temperature. For samples containing clusters separated by a small distance, the PL weakly depends on the temperature. No shift of the energy is observed. The results are discussed by taking into account the competition between the radiative recombination in the silicon clusters and the non-radiative escape of the carriers via a hopping mechanism.