Curved surface effect and manipulation of electronic states in nanosilicon

Abstract

It is interesting in low-dimensional nanostructures of silicon that the two quantum effects play different roles in nanosilicon emission, in which the quantum confinement (QC) effect opens band gap and makes emission shift into shorter wavelengths (blue-shift) as the size of the nanocrystals is reduced; however the breaking symmetry originating from impurities on nanosilicon produces the localized electronic states in band gap and makes emission shift into longer wavelengths (red-shift). The results of experiment and calculation demonstrated that the energy levels of nanosilicon can be manipulated through these quantum effects, where the curved surface (CS) effect of impurity atoms bonding on nanosilicon is important in breaking symmetry of nanosilicon system. Here, the CS effect plays an important role on impuritied nanosilicon in smaller scale with larger surface curvature, in which a few characteristic parameters have been found to describe the breaking symmetry of nanosilicon system, such as bonding angle and projecting length of bonds on curved surface. More interesting, the coupling ways between the QC effect and the CS effect determinate the levels position of localized states in band gap and manipulate emission wavelength, where a few new phenomena were explored.