Electric-field-controlled photoluminescence of CdSe nanocrystal-doped SiO2 on Si

Dense-packed CdSe nanoclusters synthesized by sequential ion implantation of Cd⁺ and Se⁺ in thermally grown SiO₂ are subjected to high electric field strengths in a metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) structure. The nanocrystal-containing device shows efficient CdSe band-edge photoluminescence (PL) when excited by a cw-HeCd laser operating at a wavelength of 442 nm at room temperature. An effective PL quenching and enhancement has been observed. Depth-resolved μ-PL measurements reveal an exponential decrease, which is depth-correlated with a layer of nanoparticles near the surface, whereas the optical non-linearity of the PL increases in parallel. The PL spectra and particle size distribution suggest an energy transfer from the nanoscopic to adjacent large particles. It can be concluded from these results that charge injection into the near-surface region of the nanocluster/SiO₂ system might be the reason for the asymmetric and hysteretic electro-optic response.