Electro-, photo- and scanning tunneling-luminescence studies of efficient light-emitting porous silicon

Porous silicon films as used in efficient blue-green electroluminescent devices (internal efficiency about 0.1%) were studied by scanning tunneling microscopy light emission spectroscopy (STMLES) as well as photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) spectroscopy. Areas of the n-type porous Si surfaces with small particles of about 5 nm dimensions gave STMLE, but areas with larger structures gave no emission. Clear STMLE spectra gave a peak at 630 nm, quite different from the EL peak at 500 nm. Whereas the PL peak at 700 nm was consistent with the STM indication of quantised entities, the EL seemed more readily explicable in terms of defects at the metal contact barrier.