Optical properties of silicon nanocrystals embedded in Si3N4 matrix measured by spectroscopic ellipsometry and UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy

In this paper, we report a spectroscopic ellipsometry study of the optical properties of silicon nanocrystals (Si-ncs) embedded in silicon nitride matrix. The nanocomposite thin-films were elaborated by radiofrequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition from ammonia and silane precursors, followed by high temperature annealing. Bruggeman effective medium approximation combined with the Tauc-Lorentz dispersion law was found to be an appropriate model in describing the ellipsometric data, and provided a fine determination of the dielectric functions or complex permittivity of Si-ncs embedded in silicon nitride. It is shown that the dielectric functions of Si-ncs undergo a large reduction in amplitude and broadening compared to the dielectric function of the bulk crystalline Si. Consequently to the disappearance of direct transition energy E-1 and E-2, the imaginary part epsilon(2) of the dielectric function of Si-ncs exhibits a single line shape centered between E-1 and E-2. With decreasing Si-ncs size, we observe a red-shift of epsilon(2) which cannot be attributed to bandgap expansion, but is better explained by electron-phonon interactions in the case of a Si3N4 matrix with high Young modulus. According to Tauc-Lorentz dispersion law, the obtained bandgap values of Si-ncs are between 1.58 eV and 1.67 eV for Si-ncs with diameters from 4.6 nm to 3.8 nm, which is in good agreement with measurements from UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy.